Second Wind
by Lahdolphin
Summary: In which Kirihara becomes captain and surprises everyone in the end. [Next gen captains.]
1. Kirihara-buchou

**A/N: This fic will hopefully be very long and very detailed with multiple plotlines and tons of character development. Since Kirihara was the only underclassmen regular at Rikkai there are a lot of OCs in this fic. I'm going to slowly introduce the main ones over the next few chapters so you're not bombarded with them all at once. Please bear with me as I introduce all of these characters. Thing will start to pick up around chapter 5 and everything will hit the fan in chapter 7.**

**Also, a quick but giant thanks to Angelico who has listened to me rant about this fic and to Fye who has looked over some OCs for me. You guys are awesome as are the other people who showed interest in this fic and encouraged me to write it.**

* * *

**Second Wind**

* * *

**Chapter 1. **  
_Kirihara-buchou_

Kirihara begins to sweat the second he steps out of the locker room and into the hot, sticky April air. It rained yesterday and the courts reek of dead worms and matted wet grass. Returning upperclassmen dressed in yellow stand scattered throughout the courts, but it's a fundamentally different sight than it was last year. Last year, everyone lined up without being told to because they knew it was what Yukimura wanted. Now, no one knows what Kirihara wants, not even Kirihara.

He heads to the courts, tries to keep his head up, and it all goes down hill from there. Currently, Kirihara is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Specifically, he's stuck standing like an idiot in front of his team because his shorts are caught in the green wire fence surrounding the tennis courts. The upperclassmen are looking around like they expected something like this to happen; the underclassmen look lost and confused because they heard Rikkaidai was a dictatorship, not a comedy show.

Damn, these shorts are really stuck.

Kirihara figures he has two options. He can either step out of his shorts and face the club in his boxers, or rip a huge hole in his shorts and have to pay for a new pair, which he can't do because he's still broke from buying all his senpai graduation gifts.

Urayama breaks away from the crowd of boys and jogs over, stopping near Kirihara to assess the damage.

"Um, Kirihara-senpai, they're wondering why you're looking at the fence and messing around with your pocket. Some guys are saying you're playing with yourself."

"My pants are caught in the damn fence," Kirihara mutters. "I bet Niou-senpai did this last year after Yukimura-buchou finally gave back his wire cutters."

"It's not Yukimura-buchou anymore…"

"I know. Shut up."

"Sorry."

Kirihara tugs harshly at his shorts and wants to scream. Maybe the upperclassmen are right. Of course something like this would happen.

"Kirihara-sen—err, Buchou, you need to do something soon or someone else is going to come over here," Urayama says nervously.

"You know what? Screw it."

Kirihara brings his knee up, attempting to step out of his shorts, but his shoe gets caught on the excess fabric and he loses his balance. He stumbles forward with the grace of an elephant, hears the loud tear of his shorts as he heads face first for the cement, and eats it. His chin burns and when he reaches up to rub it, he can feel loose skin and the sting of sweat in the open wound. It burns like sweat in his eye. Luckily, there's no blood. Only his pride and external most layers are injured.

"Are you okay?" Urayama asks frantically. "What should I do?"

Kirihara manages to turn so he's sitting on his ass and not his face, and takes off his shorts. They're no longer stuck to the fence, but they're practically torn in half and as he stands up, he wonders how the hell he's going to pay for a new pair. He'll skim from the club funds, if they even have club funds. Yanagi never told him about club funds before leaving for high school. No one told him anything.

_Act like Yukimura-buchou. That's all you have to do. If you do that, you can get through it._

Another voice tells him that Yukimura-buchou wouldn't trip out of his own shorts, but he ignores that voice because it kind of sounds like Marui.

He moves to where Yukimura used to stand, puts his hands on his hips, and says, "I'm Kirihara, your captain. This guy"—he jerks his finger to Urayama, who runs to Kirihara's side and nearly trips over his own feet—"is your vice-captain."

"Hello," Urayama says, bowing slightly.

Someone in the front of the mob of unknown faces raises their hand. Judging by his height and lack of masculine features, Kirihara bets he's a first year.

"Why are you in your underwear, Kirihara-buchou?" the boy asks without being called on.

The older kids begin to snicker. Kirihara sees Matsui, a third year from his class, take his phone out of his pocket and take a picture. Matsui's a dick. End of story.

"There was an incident."

"An incident?" the boy says.

"An incident," Kirihara repeats with murderous intent. He is not beneath killing a twelve year old if he has to. He's sure Yukimura would do the same.

…right?

"And put that away, Matsui!" Kirihara orders.

Matsui rolls his eyes, but obeys.

Kirihara swallows, takes a moment to regain himself, and tries to remember what he planned to say while he was trying (and failing) to fall asleep last night.

"This team has gone to Nationals for a long time and this year, we're going again. Only regulars will be playing in games, and since most of the regulars left me—"

Kirihara stops. Shit. He didn't mean to say that.

"Since most of the regulars graduated," he goes on, ignoring Matsui's snickering face and the first year who has his hand up again, "we'll need a new set of regulars. Starting tomorrow, there'll be a round robin for every year, further divided into singles and doubles. The top three of every section will face off in a combined tournament for regulars spots. Participation is optional. Sign up on the list posted to the bulletin board in the locker room."

He doesn't completely understand what he just said; it was Yanagi's idea. All Kirihara had to do was memorize the text he received two weeks ago. It's the last time he's heard from any of the old regulars. But it's not like he's not counting the days or anything stupid like that.

(Fifteen days, six hours and counting.)

That one first year's hand is still up, the one who asked about his pants. The boy is shorter than Echizen had been and is pretty average at first glance, with flat black hair that doesn't come past his ears and a normal face lacking any unique features. But when Kirihara sees his eyes, he double takes. The kid's got eyes like a dead fish, dull and lifeless like fogged glass. Kirihara wonders if he's looking at eyes or a pile of excessively dry mud.

"What?" Kirihara says, irritated and freaked out. He tugs at his polo, stuck to skin slick with sweat, and is thankful for the breathing room between his legs. Looking on the bright side, he has on clean underwear.

"What if we've never played tennis?" the boy asks.

Kirihara stares at the kid. He wants to ask if he knows what club this is, if he knows that they don't mess around at Rikkaidai when it comes to tennis, but he holds his tongue because the guy's dead fish eyes are staring at Kirihara, who has no idea how to say all of that without snapping. Is this kid serious?

How do you even teach someone tennis?

"Any other questions?" Kirihara asks, ignoring the first year.

Matsui raises his hand. "Yeah. Is it cold or something, Kirihara?"

Everyone laughs. Kirihara remembers the few rare occasions when he's heard laughter on these courts and the sound in his memory is nothing like the bitterness, the pure contempt in the laughter pointed at him. It's not Marui laughing because Jackal tripped, or Yukimura laughing because squirrels are having sex on the courts, or Kirihara laughing as his senpai pick at one another to lighten the mood during the long, rough days before tournaments.

Kirihara grinds his teeth together and wrings his fisted hands into his shirt. He's captain now. He can't act out, can't tell Matsui to shove it where the sun don't shine, can't scream and beat him into a pulp on the court to show who is in charge. But gods does he want to.

Then Matsui opens his mouth again: "So if we beat you in this tournament, do we get to become captain?"

Kirihara snaps.

Screw being captain. He can feel his face turning red.

Screw Yukimura's legacy. His vision begins to tunnel.

Screw Matsui. He'll dye that kid _red_.

Urayama puts a hand on Kirihara's shoulder, reeling him back and restraining him with just enough force to stop Kirihara from moving. Urayama's hand feels uncomfortable, unfamiliar, nothing like the comforting touch of his old senpai. Kirihara is shocked into momentary silence.

Yukimura announced that Urayama would be vice-captain the same day he announced Kirihara would be captain. The only difference was that everyone expected Kirihara to be captain. No one expected a girly looking second year to be the Sanada to his Yukimura. Kirihara knows nothing about him other than the fact that Kirihara's seen trees with trunks thicker than this kid's torso.

Urayama addresses the mob in Kirihara's stead. "We have the courts booked for today and we'd figured that anyone that brought a racket is free to play for an hour," Urayama says. His voice is soft, unsure, and people begin to murmur, only the first few rows able to hear what he just said. "Third and second years should know how to referee a match."

"Only the pre-regulars from last year knew and they all graduated," Matsui says. "Yukimura never had time for anyone outside of his little gang. And you never answered my question,_ Buchou_."

Matsui says it like it's poison.

Kirihara wants to shout, but doesn't because Urayama stops him yet again by pushing back on his chest. Kirihara has to admit, the kid is stronger than he looks, and he looks about as strong as a five-year-old girl. Urayama is skinny and short and just plain dainty. And what is up with that hair?

Kirihara takes one step back out of force, then another two out of his own free will.

"Don't push me," Kirihara says. The majority of his anger fizzles away.

"I'm just trying to help, Kirihara-senpai," Urayama says meekly. "I don't think a captain's supposed to yell at his members like that…"

_Sanada-fukubuchou did when he took over_, Kirihara thinks.

"And don't tell me what to do," Kirihara adds childishly.

Kirihara looks back over Urayama's shoulder, consciously aware at how easy it is to do so, and looks at the team, _his_ team. Third years like Matsui are taking control, ordering second years to set up the nets and first years to get the balls, like they're the ones in charge. No, he realizes. This isn't his team. He doesn't recognize them, doesn't care about them. They don't care about him either. They're just a means to an end.

The little voice in the back of Kirihara's head that sounds a lot like Marui says, _If you had some pants on or more manly underwear, maybe they'd take you more seriously, Akaya._

Kirihara sees Urayama shift in front of him, snapping him out of his own head.

Kirihara wants to let his shoulders drop, to lower his defenses in front of his vice-captain, but his muscles remain tight and tense in his back. He can't let any weakness show, not even in front of Urayama, who radiates weakness like it's going out of style. He is the captain of Rikkaidai. He cannot lose face.

"I'm going to go put on my sweats," Kirihara says. "Watch over them."

"Yes, Senpai!"

"It's Buchou."

Urayama looks like a deer in headlights. His voice shakes when he says, "Yes, Kirihara-buchou!"

Kirihara rolls his eyes at the kid. He still remembers talking to Yukimura after the announcement. He asked, "Do I really need to work with him, Yukimura-buchou?" He doesn't remember the response he got.

When he turns on his heels to head to the locker room, he sees a giant on the court. Standing several centimeters short of two meters with straight shoulder-length black hair and a distanced look in his eyes, the guy is a monster. He is pale but not sickly, and his dark eyes remind Kirihara of Niou—calm, calculating. He has on a yellow polo and white shorts, meaning he's a returning player. Kirihara would know if he was in his year, so it's a second year.

Kirihara squares his shoulders the way Sanada does, and holds his ground the way Jackal does at the baseline in a match. "Who are you?" Kirihara asks.

"Oyama Kenta," the monster says. "I'm Shiita's doubles partner."

"Shiita?"

"Me!" Urayama says quickly, bouncing over and nearly tripping over himself.

_Don't bounce,_ Kirihara groans mentally. Rikkaidai players don't _bounce_.

Seeing Urayama and Oyama stand next to one another is like a really bad joke. Urayama is a little shorter than Marui and Oyama is a giant among junior high schoolers. Where Urayama is soft and friendly looking, Oyama is sharp and monstrous.

"Were you two even on the pre-regulars?" Kirihara asks arbitrarily.

"Does that matter?" Oyama questions.

"I asked you so, yeah, it matters."

"No, we weren't."

Kirihara honestly never paid much attention to the pre-regulars anyways. None of the regulars did. Damn. Maybe Matsui had a point about Yukimura only caring about the regulars.

"What do you want?" Kirihara asks.

"We'll be participating in the round robin, but we're also able to referee," Oyama says. His voice isn't as deep as Kirihara expected. Definitely a second year.

"Who else can ref?"

"I don't know," Urayama says. "Sorry, Se—Buchou."

"Stop apologizing all the damn time. Have some backbone."

"Sorry!"

Kirihara rolls his eyes and looks to Urayama's partner.

"I don't know who can referee," Oyama says, mouth tense and jaw tight, like he wants to say something else entirely but is just barely holding himself back. "I don't talk to the upperclassmen. Practices last year were divided by year."

"Damn."

"But you could just look on the courts now and see who is refing the matches now," Oyama suggests. His voice is flat and dull, as if he thinks Kirihara is an idiot. Kirihara feels like an idiot so it would be an accurate assumption, but it still makes him mad.

Kirihara jerks his jaw to the side instead of yelling, his expression similar to Oyama's. "Keep track of who can," he orders. "I need to put on pants."

"And maybe you could, um, get something for your chin?" Urayama says helpfully.

Kirihara is suddenly aware of his burning chin and grimaces. Urayama runs off before Kirihara says anything. Oyama follows his partner. Kirihara can't remember seeing them ever play before. He wonders if they're any good.

* * *

Kirihara didn't get the team after Nationals ended. He heard that Tezuka passed on the torch to Kaidoh immediately after the U-17 camp, and Atobe was eventually convinced to hand Hyotei over to Hiyoshi after a month of overdramatic bitching and grand exits. Shiraishi told him that Zaizen took over as co-captain to learn the ropes. Kirihara doesn't know about the other teams, but he always figured that the newbie captain candidates began being full-fledged captains last year.

Yukimura didn't hand his team over until graduation. He trained the regulars for their advancement to high school, and continued to run practice as he always did, with the regulars coming first and foremost, everyone else acting as background characters. At the time, Kirihara didn't even want to argue with the way things were run. He was in no position to be captain, not even after that U-17 fiasco. It never quit hit him that this meant he would be left standing on the courts on the first day, a captain, with no idea what he was doing.

It's the second day of his captaincy, and it still hasn't hit him.

What kind of captain is he? Is he charismatic like Yukimura, calm yet determined, unforgivingly brutal yet understanding? Or is he like Sanada was, firm without compassion, merciless but fair? He could be flamboyant and all-powerful like Atobe, he could be enabling like Shiraishi, or he could be like Tezuka.

Yukimura is the only captain he's known. He tells himself to act like Yukimura and not worry about it.

He receives a brief text from Marui asking how his first day went, but Kirihara doesn't respond. He doesn't need any misquoted genius advice from Marui, and he doesn't want sympathy right now either. He doesn't need to be treated like a child through this. He's resolved not to ask them for help unless he messes up the team so badly that they can't even get through the first tournament in five weeks.

The first tournament is in_ five weeks_, Kirihara realizes with a groan. And if he messes that up, it's game over. There are no second chances.

Kirihara gets up and goes to school at the ass crack of dawn, using his key to unlock the tennis club's locker room. During his first year, Yukimura and the captain before him managed to convince their club advisor to give permission for numerous fundraising events to collect enough funds to build the private locker room at the beginning of last year. That reminds him…

Kirihara steals a sharpie from the bulletin board and writes a note on his hand.

_ lunch see T-sensei_

He grabs the sign up sheet for the round robin off the bulletin board, sits down on one of the benches, and holds the sharpie between his teeth to scratch off joke names. He counts up how many players will be in each section of the tournament and then pulls out a time sheet Yanagi sent him with the round robin information.

"What the hell do I do with doubles players who didn't sign up in pairs?" he grumbles. "And there's an odd number of singles players in the third year section. Am I playing?"

He sees Urayama and Oyama's names paired together on the second year doubles page. It's one thing for them to play—for all Kirihara knows, they could be horrible—but it's downright unfair to whoever gets matched with Kirihara. None of the current club members would stand a chance against him. But if he played, it would level out the number of players…

He goes to scribble on the time sheet and hears another voice in his head. It's Jackal's this time, _Maybe you should use pencil in case you make a mistake._

_I never make mistakes,_ Marui chimes in.

_Remember that time you cut your own hair?_ Jackal replies.

Marui's bubble pops then he says, _You owe me lunch now._

Jackal sighs.

Kirihara is officially going insane.

He gets a pencil from his bag and plans the afternoon practice. He still has a sharpie in his mouth and a pencil behind his ear when he hears the door rattle. He spits out the sharpie when the door opens. It goes under one of the lockers.

"I told you it'd be unlocked, Kenta," Urayama says. He comes inside, followed by Oyama. "G-good morning, Buchou! Why are you in the dark?"

Kirihara looks around. "Didn't notice." It's the truth, at least.

Oyama hits the lights and Urayama comes over to straddle the bench in front of where Kirihara is working. Urayama looks through his bag then hands Kirihara list of five names, two of which look vaguely familiar. Oyama comes and stands next to the bench.

"Who are these people?" Kirihara asks.

"You asked us to figure out who could ref a match," Urayama answers. "Kobayakawa-kun is a second year like us, but the rest are third years. Is there, um, anything else you need help with?"

Kirihara puts the list of names to the side and goes back to planning practice for the rest of the week. He's going to combine the first year doubles and singles tournaments since not many first years signed up. If he's lucky, he can squeeze in second year singles today, meaning tomorrow is second year doubles and third year doubles. Thursday will be devoted solely to third year singles since it has the most people. Friday will be the top matches to determine who is a regular.

Why is this so confusing? Last year, it never seemed confusing. Yanagi told him when and who to play and that was that.

He begins to fill first years into the time blocks. There's only six first years so it doesn't take long, but there are significantly more second years.

"This is a second year, third year pair," Urayama points out. "Where do they go?"

"Crap. Wherever there's an odd number?" Kirihara says, thinking out loud. "Second year is odd. So second year bracket."

"That means the third year bracket is odd," Oyama says.

"And you forgot this person," Urayama adds. "So I guess that means second year is even now, so you can add them back to third."

"No, he has them there," Oyama replies.

"Nu-uh."

"Yes, he does, Shiita."

"Shut up!" Kirihara snaps.

Urayama flinches back. Oyama, however, does not react at all. The giant reaches down, pointing to the schedule, and calmly says, "You scheduled this person twice."

Kirihara erases the name with enough force to tear the entire paper in half.

"Damn it!" he swears. He glares up at Oyama. "I got this. You're just messing me up. Why are you even here this early in the morning?"

"You never told us the morning practice schedule," Urayama replies quietly, not looking at him.

"There is no morning practice this week. Put a note on the door or something."

Urayama gets up slowly, cautiously, then the doubles pair leaves together.

Kirihara swears so loudly it echoes in the empty locker room.

* * *

Kirihara spends lunch working on the schedule instead of seeing the club advisor. His friends try to talk to him, but he brushes them off, saying they'll eat together tomorrow and he's sorry but he really needs to do this right now. Matsui passes him by on his way out of the room and asks if he remembered to bring a spare pair of shorts, and Kirihara tells him to shove it or he'll cross his name off the participating list. That shuts Matsui up real quick.

He checks his phone on the way to practice to see if Yukimura has finally remembered to give him some sagely advice, but there's only another text from Marui wondering why he hasn't responded yet. He's too busy looking at his phone that he nearly walks straight into the door to the locker room and probably would have if that creepy ass first year hadn't opened it from the other side first.

"Good afternoon, Kirihara-buchou," the kid says. His eyes are still as dead as they had been yesterday. He's wearing the standard first year gym uniform given out at orientation; his name isn't written on the shorts yet. Crap. Kirihara has to get uniforms for the new members.

"What's your name?" Kirihara asks. Yukimura made a point to know the name of everyone in the club. Kirihara figures he could give it a shot. What's a hundred names, after all? (The answer is that it's a hundred names he will forget and will have to have repeated to him.)

"Nishimura Daiki. First year, class C." Even his voice is prepubescent and flat. "What do club members do as warm-up?"

Kirihara forgot warm-ups existed. He didn't plan anything.

_Think, Akaya. What would Yukimura-buchou do?_

"Ten laps around the court, thirty push ups, crunches, and squats, and fifty racket swings," Kirihara says. That was his warm-up his first year. He remembers the kid's question about never playing tennis. "Do you have a racket?"

"No. I've never played tennis before."

Kirihara remembers Sanada telling members where the spare rackets are, but he can't remember where that was. Regulars never had to clean up, not even when Sanada was in charge. Regulars were supposed to take the time to cool down properly to avoid muscle strain.

"I can show you where the spare ones are," Urayama says, coming out of the locker room, already dressed. "I-Is that alright, Kirihara-buchou?"

Kirihara nods stiffly.

Urayama takes the boy outside to the supply shed on the far side of the courts, outside of the fenced enclosure. Kirihara changes in the back at the good lockers, the ones reserved for regulars, the ones that are all empty except for his. A strip of masking tape is still stuck over his locker from last year with his name on it. With no one around to tell him to keep his locker clean, it's already cluttered.

It's hot, and he's sweating from half of his usual warm-up that Yanagi gave him, and his muscles ache almost as bad as his scrapped up chin. He rubs at the bandage there and hopes it stays on despite the sweat. He rolls ups his sweatpants after his laps, but it doesn't help him cool down in the humid April heat.

The worst moment yet comes after warm-up. He stands in front of the mob yet again, ready to start the first year sections, and he can't think of what to say.

Yukimura would tell everyone to do their best no matter their opponent. Atobe would demand practice began. What would Hiyoshi do? Is Hiyoshi like Atobe?

Urayama looks at him expectedly. Matsui laughs with his friends in the crowd. The first year—Kirihara's already forgotten his name—is staring at him with those unsettling eyes.

Kirihara steps forward and panics. He thought stepping forward would make something come to mind, but he still has no idea what to say.

"The list is in your pocket, Kirihara-buchou," Urayama says softly.

Kirihara reaches into his pocket, pulling out the list of names. "Right," he says to himself. To the crowd, he says, "I want the two first year double pairs to get on court A. Urayama is your referee. The two single players get on court B. I'm refing your match. Everyone else get in the bleachers and support your teammates."

The words don't feel right coming out of his mouth.

"Which court is which?" a first year calls out. It's not Nishimura—that's his name!

"Follow your referee," Urayama says as he climbs up into the chair at court A. "You can look up the court layout in the locker room."

_They can?_ Kirihara thinks.

"I'm posting a map tomorrow," Urayama adds.

The first years are horrible. It physical hurts Kirihara to watch the matches. Even the boys who have played before—and it looks like only two of them out of the six that signed up have—are awkward and stiff and can't serve. The doubles players are uncoordinated. They're obviously just friends who wanted to try out tennis and have never actually played together.

Is it possible for people to be this bad at tennis? At least Nishimura doesn't play. That would have been a train wreck.

Kirihara doesn't remember the names of the winners after he circles them on his list, which he turns over to see second year singles. There are six courts and each of them is in use. Twelve second year singles players signed up, yet Kirihara doesn't recognize any of them.

None of them turn out to be anything special, but they are very obviously Rikkaidai players. Yukimura, Sanada, and Yanagi and the rest of the regulars had taught them and it shows. Their serves have accuracy and power, their movements are concise, and their volleys don't pointlessly drag on. But no one stands out, meaning no one is pulling ahead of their opponent.

Kirihara groans when his match hits another deuce.

* * *

"Damn it. I forgot to see him again," Kirihara mutters when he comes out of the locker room on Wednesday and sees Takeda-sensei sitting on a bench inside the fence.

Nishimura comes up to Kirihara's side and asks, "Who is that man? Is he a pervert who watches practice?"

"Don't say that about him."

"Well, I wouldn't say that about him if I knew who he was. Who is he?"

"The club advisor. He controls all of our funds and whether or not we can have practice camps. He has to sign off on forms when we enter tournaments, too."

Kirihara has heard horror stories about this man. He's heard that Sanada had to drop his head and pride, and plead for money for a new ball machine when the last one broke. He heard that Yukimura had to clap all of the erasers in the school for a month for club funds. He heard that Yanagi played him in chess for a weekend practice camp and Yanagi lost, meaning he had extra clean up duty for a week.

"He's the devil," Kirihara says.

"I read in a magazine that you were the devil, Kirihara-buchou," Nishimura says.

Kirihara locks his jaw. "Run an extra five laps."

Nishimura sighs and jogs off to run around the fenced in courts. Kirihara rubs at the bandage on his chin—it's an ugly yellow now, but it's almost scabbed over—and it doesn't burn when sweat touches it anymore. It will heal, but the club members won't forget.

Kirihara walks over to Takeda-sensei, avoiding members who are running laps, and unlatches the door on the fence.

"Good afternoon, Sensei," Kirihara says, bowing slightly like Yukimura, Sanada, and Yanagi would whenever this geezer showed up to practice.

Takeda-sensei is a living fossil, probably older than dinosaurs, with no hair and a fat face. He smells too clean to have just spent hours teaching in front of the classroom. He wears hideous sweaters and uses a cane to walk, but he is never out of breath, and Marui theorized the cane was a trick to make people think he was a weak old man.

"If he isn't a weak old man, what is he?" Jackal would reply.

"I don't know." Marui would blow a bubble. "Not a weak old man."

Kirihara stands up straight and looks at the devil.

"Ah, Kirihara-kun," Takeda-sensei says slowly with a dangerous, closed lip smile that reminds Kirihara of Yukimura. "When I hadn't heard from you, I thought that something had happened. It looks like I was right. Is your chin alright?"

"It's alright. And there was an, uh, incident the first day."

"Yes, an incident. I heard all about this incident from Matsui-kun. He was kind enough to talk to me while you took your time changing in that locker room I helped your team get. Although, I suppose that was before your time."

Kirihara looks around the courts for Matsui, but sees no sign of the backstabber.

"Please, sit," Takeda-sensei says. It's not a suggestion. Kirihara sits next to him, unsure of what to do with his hands, and ends up putting them on his knees. He tries to sit up straight like Sanada but it hurts his already sore back. Proper posture sucks. "So, Kirihara-kun, or should I call you Kirihara-buchou?"

"Kirihara-kun is alright, I guess."

"You guess." Takeda-sensei laughs lightly, in little huffs instead of a steady steam. "You are quite amusing, Kirihara-kun. Yukimura-kun said I would like you."

"He did?"

"Yes. He said many things about you, as did Yanagi-kun during our chess matches. Did you know that rascal managed to beat me the last time we met? Why, I think he pretended to lose every other time to get on my good side. You know, when I think about it, Yukimura-kun did always stop by for a cup of tea the days after I beat Yanagi-kun. Your senpai were quite something, don't you agree?"

"Yeah," Kirihara says softly, trying not to think too much about it.

"Hmm. What's bothering you, Kirihara-kun?"

"Nothing. If you don't need anything, I should really—"

Takeda-sensei stomps his cane into the ground. He isn't done yet. He smiles like an innocent old man.

_The devil_, Kirihara thinks.

"The principal tells me that your club will be given less funds due to your, ah, _incident_ at Nationals last year." Takeda-sensei turns to look at Kirihara, who fidgets but does not look away. "I am very proud of this club, Kirihara-kun. As you may know, I was once a member myself, back when my bones did not rub and I was much more attractive." He pauses.

_Am I supposed to compliment him? This is getting really weird._

Takeda-sensei laughs. "Calm down, calm down. I have no intentions of harming this club. It is my legacy, you see, and I want it to be a legacy worth bragging about. Your loss at Nationals last year was quite the disappointment. Yukimura-kun promised me three consecutive wins, but he fell through on that promise. And because of what, a first year? It's a shame, to be honest, a down right embarrassment to the Rikkai name. Yukimura-kun still apologizes every chance he gets, as if that will change the outcome.

"Now, as much as I want this club to succeed, I will not advocate for club funds unless I think it is worth investing in. The girls' club did quite well last year as well. In fact, one could call their loss in the third round at Regionals better than your advancement and loss in the Finals at Nationals. You see, when you expect nothing of someone, their victories always surprise you but their disappoints only confirm your belief."

_He's talking about me. He expects nothing from me._

"I'll be watching practice today, Kirihara-kun," Takeda-sensei says slowly, a glint in his eyes that old men should not have. "Try not to let another incident occur, would you?"

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"I'll try," Kirihara says. "I mean, there won't be another incident."

"Good, good. That's what I like to here, Kirihara-kun."

Kirihara stands up, hands balled into fists, and jaw clenched.

_Don't let anyone down. Keep a straight face. Act like Yukimura-buchou._

He spends the entire day refing doubles matches, trying not to slip up in front of Takeda-sensei. He doesn't know how Urayama and Oyama do since he does not ref their match, but they win their match and advance to the next round, which they also win. Kirihara is curious about their play style, but not curious enough to look away from his match and disappoint Takeda-sensei. Urayama and Oyama will advance to the final round on Friday, along with a pair from the match Kirihara refed.

Takeda-sensei says nothing about practice when he leaves, only that he hopes Kirihara stops by for tea some time. Kirihara nods, makes sure the nets are put into the storage shed, and goes into the locker room.

There's a voice mail waiting for him on his phone. He holds the phone between his ear and shoulder as he drops his pants.

"Akaya," Sanada's voice says, slightly deeper than it had been last year. Kirihara nearly drops the phone. "Takeda-sensei sent me an email saying he was visiting your practice. Don't mess up. That man is the devil."

In the background, Kirihara can hear Marui, "You know that if he isn't picking up, it means he's already at practice, right?"

"Marui!"

"Don't yell, the captain will be mad," Yukimura says. "Genichirou, tell Akaya I said—"

_Beep._ The message cuts off.

What was Yukimura going to say? Kirihara wants to throw his phone at the wall. Instead, he clutches it in his hands and hits it against his forehead.

_Get it together_, he tells himself.

* * *

The end of the week and the end of this tournament don't come soon enough for Kirihara. He doesn't play during the round robin tournament and none of the upperclassmen except for Matsui say anything about it.

"You think you're better than us? Is that why you didn't play? Or did precious Yukimura-buchou tell you not to?"

Kirihara turns red, his fists balled, and he wants to yell, but Urayama stops him with an uncomfortable, alien hand to his shoulder. Kirihara shakes off the second year and goes to stand in front of his team. _Don't freak out. Act like Yukimura. _

But the first years are still confused about Matsui's outburst.

"Why didn't you play, Buchou?" Nishimura asks without being called on.

"I was on the team last year."

"He thinks he's better than all of us," Matsui says loudly.

One of the doubles pairs that just won their match and a spot on the regulars looks at Kirihara, who does not know what to say. He knows he's better than them—all of them, even Urayama, who is his vice-captain and is standing in the crowd with his monster partner. Kirihara stood on the court with the kings of Rikkaidai and everyone else here were just the leftovers used for support they didn't need. None of them stand a chance against him. He deserves to be captain more than anyone. He's better. He's stronger.

_Don't get angry. If you get angry, no one will follow you._

"See?" Matsui says smugly.

Kirihara clutches the final roster in his hands until it's wrinkled. He hates that Matsui is on the list as a singles player. Kirihara saw him play. He could beat Matsui with his eyes closed, but with some luck, some other idiots in the tournament won't be able to. Yukimura, Sanada, and Yanagi trained him well.

Nishimura asks again, "Buchou? Is that true? Do you think you're better than us?"

"We're a seeded team so we skip the District Tournament next week," Kirihara says, gritting his teeth and ignoring them. "We'll hold another tournament to determine regulars before Kanto Regionals and another one before Nationals."

"You're avoiding the question," Nishimura says bluntly.

"He's an arrogant bastard who would take this team to Nationals by himself if he could, but he can't!" Matsui says, nearly shouting. "You can only play one match per round so you need pawns. Yukimura knew it too, that's why you hand picked your teammates like cattle for the slaughter."

"Slaughter?" a first year mutters.

"We lost last year. Because the captain was an ego driven ass, just like Kirihara."

Kirihara sees red. "Shut up. Don't you dare insult—"

"What are you going to do about it, Kirihara? Cry to Sanada like you did last year?"

"Please stop talking," Urayama says, but his voice is lost in the mob and only Kirihara and a few others can hear him. Kirihara's rage quells temporarily. "You're not the captain, Matsui-senpai, so please _stop._"

"Am I supposed to listen to a second year?" Matsui asks. "Kirihara, did you even pick this brat out? Or do you think you're too good for a vice-captain too?"

Kirihara looks at the roster, avoiding the question, gritting his teeth and caging his overwhelming rage.

"These are the regular members for the Prefecture Tournament," Kirihara says. "Singles—Kirihara Akaya, third year; Matsui Ryuu, third year; and Yamauchi Seiji, third year. Doubles—Hirai Yasushi and Azuma Toshiyuki, both third year; and Urayama Shiita and Oyama Kenta, both second year."

"Buchou?" Nishimura says. He raises his hand, like he's not sure if Kirihara can hear him. "Why didn't you play in the tournament? What is Senpai talking about?"

"I told you—!" Matsui shouts, but Kirihara can't take it anymore. He can't hear Matsui's protests. They think he's a joke. He's done trying to be like Yukimura.

_Don't do it,_ Marui says.

_Akaya, you'll only make it worse by getting angry_, Jackal adds.

And screw his senpai. They left him here alone, unprepared.

"Shut up!" Kirihara yells, cutting off Matsui. "I could beat you all with my eyes closed. The only people from this school who could beat me graduated last year. If anyone is stupid enough to think they can beat me, then come up and fight me right now. I'll dye you red!"

Nishimura lowers his hand. His dead eyes drop to the ground.

"Well, anyone?" Kirihara prompts. He looks around the mob of boys. They're quiet. No one dares speak out of fear. Matsui and his damn grin fuel his anger. "I'm your captain because I'm strong—stronger than all of you! I deserve this. Now shut up and listen to me, or you're off my team!"

Kirihara shoves the piece of paper into his pocket and looks out at the crowd. Nishimura and the other first years look confused, almost hurt. This is obviously not the Rikkaidai they expected. The second years look pissed and the third years don't look surprised, like their suspicions about Kirihara over the last three years were all true.

"Anyone else who managed to reach the final tournament today is a pre-regular. Clean up the courts and go home. Morning practice starts Monday for regulars. That's all."

Nishimura raises his hand with another question, but Kirihara turns before he can ask it.

As he heads towards the locker room, he thinks, _Rikkaidai must have a ruler_, then frowns because he's heard that somewhere before but he can't quite remember where.


	2. The Rikkaidai Tennis Club

**Chapter 2. **  
_The Rikkaidai Tennis Club_

Kirihara shows up five minutes late to his first morning practice as captain. Last year, morning practice was regulars only, and Kirihara plans to keep it that way. Marui would show up with food, which he would share with Niou and Kirihara under the bleachers where Sanada couldn't see; sometimes Yukimura joined them. Jackal and Yanagi would come to practice together with caffeinated tea. When Sanada was unable to attend, Yukimura would let Kirihara take short naps on the benches without punishment if he was extra tired and there wasn't a tournament right around the corner.

He passes the locker room and heads around the fenced courts. To the side is a shed with all of the equipment. The inside is covered in at least an inch of dust and spiders make their homes in the corners, the light from the broken, dirty windows illuminating their webs. Kirihara cracks open the decrepit storage shed, grabs the heaviest box off the shelf in the back, and manages to get to the locker room without stopping for rest or dropping the box on his feet. He doesn't know how he'd explain a broken foot to Urayama anyways, so he counts himself lucky.

He knocks on the door by kicking. He adjusts the box in his hands. Seconds later Urayama is opening the door and looking at him.

"G-Good morning, Buchou." Urayama sounds as horrified as he looks. Kirihara hasn't talked to him since his outburst on the court last week and he left before clean up had finished. He wonders if Urayama was able to handle something as simple as getting the courts cleaned up. Kirihara should apologize. There's a lot of things he should do but doesn't.

"Move," Kirihara orders. He shifts the box in his hands. There's a label on the side in Sanada's handwriting from when he was a first year—_weights_. Even as a first year, Sanada's kanji was perfect.

Urayama moves aside and Kirihara comes in, dropping the box on the bench where Matsui and another boy are sitting. The second boy smiles kindly and says, "Good morning, Kirihara-buchou. How are you?"

Kirihara ignores him; he has no idea who the boy is.

The locker room looks completely different than the image in Kirihara's memory. The smell is just as awful, the lockers are just as broken and hard to open, but there are seven figures missing from the back. Now, there are only unfamiliar faces—four to be exact. Oyama is sitting on the floor against his locker and Urayama moves to sit next to him. Matsui and the boy sit on the backless bench, one of several that run the length of the room.

Kirihara looks around, counting again because there should be two more people. "Where are the other two?" he asks.

"Do you even know our names?" Matsui grumbles.

Urayama mouths something at him. Kirihara can't read lips. Urayama smiles meekly. "Hirai- and Azuma-senpai are missing," the vice-captain says.

Oyama looks at Kirihara, as if challenging him to snap at Urayama for talking. What is up with those two?

"Does anyone know if they're coming?" Kirihara asks. Hirai and Azuma were the other doubles pair; they're both third years but Kirihara has no idea who they are or what they look like. Hell, he only knows Matsui because they're in the same class.

"Doubt it," Matsui says. "I wouldn't have if my brother didn't wake me up this morning."

Kirihara ignores Matsui. If Oyama and Urayama are here, and Matsui is here, and Hirai and Azuma are missing, then that means the other boy on the bench is Yamauchi. It sounds like a bad math problem.

Kirihara vaguely remembers Yamauchi from last year. Towards the end of last year, one of the third year pre-regulars broke their leg at a training camp and Yamauchi took his spot. He was the only second year pre-regular, even if it was only for a few weeks. His tennis is average, the kind of tennis you get from hard work, not from natural talent. Kirihara doesn't know anything else about him.

Yamauchi looks like a jock. He's got the muscle build of a swimmer, the long arms of a center in basketball, and the height of a volleyball player, though his height doesn't even begin to compare to Oyama. Other than that, he's kind of average, with light brown eyes and straight, styled brown hair. His skin is tanned but not outrageously dark like Kirihara's gets during summer training camps. Yamauchi is probably the type of guy that girls would talk about quietly in the hallway and confess to behind the gym.

Yamauchi is still smiling kindly at Kirihara, like they're best friends or something, and a small part of Kirihara is inclined to believe it's a real smile. Kirihara can tell after two years with Niou around.

"Does anyone know their max?" Kirihara asks.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Matsui replies.

"Bench press, squatting—any weight lifting max?" Kirihara looks around at the boys, who are shaking their heads. "What the hell did you guys do during weight lifting last year?"

"Upperclassmen played practice matches against each other and underclassmen watched," Urayama says, shrinking the more he talks. "Only regulars and pre-regulars did weight training."

Kirihara looks at Yamauchi. "Then you—?"

"I was only a pre-regular for two weeks," Yamauchi says. "I didn't get the chance to check my maxes."

Kirihara grumbles as he opens the box of weights. Yanagi left a table lying around that would help him determine who got how much weight. It involves running speeds, weight lifting maxes, and some type of freaky math equation that Kirihara can't make heads or tails of. There's a simpler equation in Yukimura's handwriting on the other side that Kirihara plans to use.

"Then everyone will start on a low weight until we get to the weight room," Kirihara says, thinking out loud. He begins to toss black wristbands to everyone. They're special order and have holes for weights, which sit in the bottom of the box. Right now, the bands are empty, and Urayama doesn't catch his. "You will wear this at all times of the day, even when you sleep."

"How do you know if we take them off?" Matsui asks.

Kirihara glares, unable to come up with an answer. Yukimura just _knew_. Kirihara has no idea how he did it.

"You were able to carry this box?" Yamauchi asks, changing the subject. Kirihara looks at him and nods, confused. "That's impressive, Buchou. What are your maxes?"

"Bench is around 180 pounds, dead lift is 200, and squats 190."

"Is that good?"

"Yanagi-senpai said they were for my age, but mine are low compared to the regulars. The regulars can do up to one hundred and fifty percent of their weight on bench. I think Jackal-senpai's is higher, and so is Sanada-fukubuchou's. Their dead lifts are twice their benches, and their squats are usually twenty or thirty pounds more than mine."

"Shiita is vice-captain, not Sanada," Oyama says. His arms are crossed and he looks irritated (more so than usual). "And we're the regulars now."

"Kenta," Urayama says, looking horrified that Oyama just said that.

"You know what I meant," Kirihara mutters.

"Well, that sounds impressive to me, Kirihara-buchou," Yamauchi says, easing the mood. Matsui glares at him and says something that sounds like_ kiss ass_.

Kirihara shifts through the weight bars at the bottom of the box for the proper weights. Last year, in the weight room, Marui dropped a ten-pound weight on Jackal's foot and had to run until he threw up. Sanada would get a big smile on his face whenever he reached a new max. Niou liked to "accidentally" drop the powder container into Marui's bag to make him mad, ruining all of his hidden treats. Sometimes, on hot days, they'd make bets to see who could keep their clothes on the longest (the weight room doesn't have A/C for some godforsaken reason). Kirihara usually lost, stripping out of his shirt and paying for ice-cream afterwards.

Kirihara stops smiling and reminds himself to focus.

"What weight are we going to carry?" Urayama asks.

"One pound on each wrist until I can figure out your maxes," Kirihara answers. He begins tossing little half pound bars to everyone. "Put one on each side of your wrist or you'll pull muscles and crap."

Matsui gets his bars, but doesn't move to put them in. "What's the point of this?"

"How much weight do you have?" Urayama asks before Kirihara can snap.

"Four pounds on each wrist," Kirihara says._ I should increase._ He grabs two quarter-pound bars and slips them into his band. "Four and a quarter pounds," he corrects.

"I could do five pounds, easy," Matsui says.

"You'd die."

"Just because you can't do it doesn't mean I can't."

Kirihara doesn't even try to fight him. He hands him ten one-pound bars and takes back the half-pound bars. "There. But if you take them off, or try to switch out the weight, you're running until your legs fall off."

"Whatever. It's not even that heavy."

_Just wait_, Kirihara thinks maliciously.

The door to the locker room opens. Kirihara turns, expecting Hirai and Azuma to come in late, but it's the first year with the dead eyes that's at the door. Nishimura comes in with his school bag; a light blue racket handle sticks out of the top.

"Only regulars have morning practice," Urayama says kindly.

"I wanted to use the courts," Nishimura says. He shifts the bag on his shoulder. "I bought my own racket this weekend. I want to learn to serve. All the senpai can do it already."

Kirihara remembers coming to the regulars-only morning practices and running around the track, or sneaking in to the tennis courts to serve when the regulars went off to run. It makes him uselessly nostalgic.

"Do you mind if I use the courts, Buchou?" Nishimura asks.

"Just clean up when you're done. If I see one ball out of place this afternoon, you're doing double the training."

Nishimura nods in agreement and comes in to change.

* * *

Kirihara has an entire list of things he needs to do—get the first years uniforms (and get himself a new pair of shorts), get the regulars their lockers and tell them they can use the good showers, reserve the weight room, and a few other things he wrote in the column of his math notes instead of taking math notes. Also, he needs to borrow someone's math notes.

Kirihara watches Matsui during class. Matsui sits in the front row so Kirihara can only see the back of his head most of the time, but occasionally Kirihara can see Matsui reach up and rub his wrists. Kirihara grins then remembers his own wrists are feeling the strain of the increase in weight. He turns the weights to make them more comfortable. He can feel the new bars and it bothers him.

He leaves the classroom during lunch, ignoring the calls of his friends who are wondering where he's going.

"Not again, dude!" Hajime groans.

"I'm stealing your lunch," Jun says.

"Akaya, what the hell man? It's just tennis!" Shin adds.

Kirihara shoves his hands in his pockets, trying to look cool while also trying to remember where the history office is because that's where he'll find Takeda-sensei. He's been at the school for three years now, but he still doesn't know the layout. It's not like he ever needed to go to teachers for extra help. The senpai always helped by tutoring him in their best subjects.

Besides, who can blame him for getting lost in this place? With over two thousand students and three separate, four-floor academic buildings, it's practically a labyrinth. It would make sense that each building would belong to a grade level, but that would be too simple. The layout makes no sense. Then there's the sports areas, plus there's the pool and the greenhouses, and at least a dozen quads where students gather for lunch. Niou claims he found a hidden courtyard somewhere, but he refused to take anyone there so no one knows if he was telling the truth.

Kirihara spends the first half of lunch looking for Takeda-sensei's office. He's outside of the history office when he sees a cute girl with short hair held back with red barrettes walking towards him. Her hair is dark but not quite black like his own and is completely straight instead of curly. She smiles and waves at him. He freezes.

Girls don't talk to him. They talk to Niou, and Marui, and Yukimura, but not him. More girls talk to Sanada than they do him. To the rest of the school, he's still the goofy kid with anger issues that is obsessed with tennis.

Kirihara wonders if there's someone behind him that the girl is heading towards. He turns and sees no one. She stops in front of him. She is just barely taller than Urayama.

"Kirihara-kun, right?" Her voice is high like Nishimura's and Urayama's, and she has freckles over her entire face like an overgrown ladybug without any red.

"Do I know you?" Kirihara asks.

_Smooth, Akaya, real smooth_, Marui says sarcastically in his head.

_Don't be mean,_ Jackal replies.

The girl smiles, un-offended. "I'm Yamada Yui, from class E. I'm captain of the girls' tennis team. Last year you yelled at me for being on the courts even though the girls' team had them reserved."

Kirihara remembers last year in spring, a week before Nationals, when the girls' team had used their courts. He'd snapped. Yagyuu reminded him that the courts belong to the school and that they have the indoor gym for the day and the girls have the outdoor courts. Kirihara turned red when Marui laughed at him. Kirihara doesn't remember this Yamada girl being the one he yelled at, though.

"Don't even lie and say you remember me," Yamada says, literally waving it off. She has freckles on her arms, too.

_Does she have them on her legs?_ Marui wonders in his head.

_Don't look, that's rude, _Jackal says.

Kirihara looks.

Her skirt goes as high as the other girls' and her socks come to her knees. He thinks he sees freckles on her thighs, which are slightly bigger than most girls', toned and built with hard earned muscle. At least the girls' team is doing something right if their third years have muscle like that.

"So have you picked your team yet?" Yamada asks. Kirihara nods dumbly. "Awesome. How are they?"

_Horrible_.

"Okay."

"Also awesome. We should have our teams run together sometime, or get the weight room. The soccer and wrestling teams have it booked solid until May and any time slot they didn't take, the basketball team took. If we get our advisors to work together, we may be able to get it." Yamada sighs, like this captain thing is annoying (Kirihara agrees), then she frowns. Her small lips make it look more like a pout. It's sort of cute. "Why are you here, Kirihara-kun? Math help?"

"I'm here to talk to Takeda-sensei. I need to get uniforms."

"Takeda-sensei? From the history department?" Kirihara nods. Yamada laughs at him, not even bothering to hide it. "This is the math department's office. How long have you been a student here, Kirihara-kun?"

Kirihara looks at the sign above the door. Marui is laughing at him in his head. Or maybe Yamada is still laughing. Yeah, Yamada is still laughing at him.

"Oh. Then where's the history office?"

"Down the stairs to the left in the east wing."

"Okay... So why are you in the math office? Are you bad at math?"

_You suck at flirting_, Marui tells him.

_He's learning_, Jackal responds.

_I'm not flirting_, Kirihara thinks.

Marui blows a bubble, obviously not convinced.

"I'm here to see our club advisor about using the indoor gym; she's the advanced mathematics teacher," Yamada answers, changing her voice when she says _advanced mathematics _in such a way that Kirihara grins. He hates math almost as much as English. He remembers to focus on the words coming out of the girl's mouth instead of just staring at her. "Since we don't have courts like the boys' team, we need to schedule practice in the gym, but a lot of the other sports teams use it. If we don't get any practice in before the Prefectural Tournament, there's no way we're making it past the first round."

"Isn't the girls' team really bad?" Yamada blinks, surprised at his accidental bluntness. He rubs the back of his head nervously. "Sorry. I mean—"

"You said it so you obviously meant it. And I wouldn't say we're _bad_… We just don't have access to the gym or courts on a regular basis. If we got to practice every day like your team, we may have a chance. But we won't get access to the gym or tennis courts until we do well at a tournament, which can't do without the gym or courts. It's a vicious cycle that's hard to break out of. We made it to the third round of Regionals last year, but I guess that's not enough to take away the courts from the boys' team."

"Oh. Well. Um..."

"Oh. Yeah. Totally." Yamada grins, obviously mocking him, but it's not spiteful. It reminds him of Niou.

"I guess I should let you talk to your person then"—Yamada grins, Kirihara fumbles awkwardly—"and I should go to the place."

"Right, the place," Yamada says, still grinning. She waves good-bye and enters the math office, and Kirihara has the urge to bang his head against the wall until it breaks or he breaks. He has never been good with girls. Apparently that won't change any time in the future.

On his way to the history office, he gets turned around and ends up near the vending machines, getting caught in lunchtime rush. He swears and pushes his way through the crowd of people, only to end up in a part of the school that he doesn't recognize at all. The warning bell rings. He swears and follows the crowd up, hoping he ends up in the right room.

He's ten minutes late to class and he didn't get to see Takeda-sensei. Kirihara bangs his head against his desk. At least he didn't get detention.

* * *

Hirai and Azuma don't show up to afternoon practice either, and Matsui is still wearing the damn weights. As far as Kirihara knows, he's kept them on all day, and it bugs Kirihara as much as it worries him. That much weight on a weak wrist will seriously screw up Matsui's tendons. Maybe his masturbating arm can take it—Kirihara figures a jack off like Matsui uses a lot—but it will still do some damage.

Matsui will cave. He has to because Kirihara won't. His pride can't take another blow. He already yelled at his team, something he swore he wouldn't do, and now they hate him more than ever. He can't get into a dick-sizing contest. He tells himself it already isn't a dick-sizing contest, though he knows deep down that it is.

He figures he'll start simple the first legitimate day of practice and focus on racket grip. Kirihara makes sure everyone has a racket, ordering Urayama to help him get the extras from the supply shed and distribute them. Kirihara and Urayama go around fixing the grip of almost everyone in the club, even the third years who somehow got past Sanada's harsh scrutiny. (Kirihara only trusts Urayama to do this because he checked out the kid's grip in the locker room and it's perfect. Kirihara doesn't attribute this to skill, but to his senpai who graduated and taught Urayama in the first place.)

Kirihara gets to the first year with the dead eyes and pauses. He takes extra time adjusting Nishimura's fingers, telling him how to hold his racket comfortably.

"Is this the right way?" Nishimura asks.

"It's the basic way," Kirihara says. "Until you know what the hell you're doing, you should do this. Pros use different grips. Some of our opponents have guys on their teams who change them half way through a match for moves."

Kirihara takes Nishimura's racket away from him then hands it back. Nishimura grips it like Kirihara showed him.

"Is this alright?"

Kirihara can't suppress his smile. "It doesn't completely suck."

Nishimura doesn't return his smile, but his eyes seem a little less dead.

Working on basic forms is hard, especially when none of the third years will listen to Urayama. Hell, half the club still isn't listening to Kirihara and he's captain. People show up late and don't run their extra laps as punishment, and people half ass their push-ups and do sit-ups instead of crunches. By the end of practice, people's forms are still off, but Kirihara and the rest of the regulars don't have time to sit around and practice their form. The regulars need to start playing real matches or the tournament is going to be living hell. Before that, Kirihara has to see them play so he can figure out how to make them better. That's what a captain does, right? It's what Yukimura did.

As the week progress, Kirihara is run ragged as he tries to teach first years to serve while helping the regulars with advanced serves. It's hot and he forces people to drink water even if he has to stare at them until they're so uncomfortable that they give in and steal their friend's water bottle right out of their hands. Sometimes being silent with eyes that scream murder is just as productive as _actually_ screaming murder.

Urayama has a fast serve with horrible accuracy. Oyama's serve is standard, but its power wavers by the end of practice. Yamauchi's serve is below average and Kirihara has him aim for the corners of the court to improve his accuracy and consistency. Matsui won't even listen to Kirihara's advice and continues doing his (regrettably) decent serve, though the toil of his wrist from the weights is obvious. Then there's Nishimura who can't even toss a ball properly and Kirihara thinks he's going to pop a blood vessel.

Overall, second years lack accuracy, third years are trying new serves, and first years are—well, Kirihara doesn't like to think about them because Nishimura isn't even the worst first year there.

It doesn't help that Azuma and Hirai still haven't shown up for a single practice by Thursday morning, or that Kirihara doesn't get to eat because he spends his lunch periods trying to find the history department. It's too damn embarrassing to ask and when he bumps into Yamauchi in the hall, he makes up an excuse for why he's running around like a chicken without a head.

The first time Kirihara actually manages to find Takeda-sensei's office, the devil isn't even there. The other teachers in the department say he is out buying lunch. Kirihara goes to the cafeteria, but he gets turned around twice in east wing, and again in west wing, then somehow ends up in the wrong building without ever leaving. By the time he gets back into the right building, the warning bell is going off. He books it back to class, sliding into the room as the bell rings. His friends laugh and clap as he sits down.

Class isn't easy either. He always thought the regulars were kidding when they complained about how hard the work got during third year. He isn't even in the advanced classes like they all were. He's in the basic academic track with the easiest electives. He takes notes instead of planning warm up routines for the regulars, and he stresses over homework assignments at three in the morning after planning tennis practice, and he copies Hajime's history homework during lunch. He still doesn't have math notes from Monday.

Kirihara heads to afternoon practice, following Matsui in the hall. Worst still, Matsui still has his weights on. Kirihara has no doubt the boy has taken them off at home, but the fact that he keeps them on during school sends off red signals in Kirihara's head. He needs to do something today, or something bad is going to happen. He can feel it in his gut.

Is that a captain thing? Gut feelings?

He hopes so, but he doubts other captains have gut feelings that sound like Marui and Jackal. He wonders if he's taken one too many stray serves to the head.

_He's going to hurt himself_, Marui says, using his serious tone. _Yukimura never would have let it go this far, Akaya. You need to suck up your pride and make him take those things off._

_He may not be able to play tennis if you don't, _Jackal quips.

_You can't lose in the first tournament, Akaya_, Marui says. _Losing is not permitted._

_I know_, Kirihara thinks miserably. The phrase weighs heavily above his head.

When Kirihara goes into the locker room, Urayama approaches him. Oyama stands at his locker, watching like an overprotective, giant hawk. Kirihara still has no idea what's going on with them. He doesn't really care as long as they can play together.

"Hirai- and Azuma-senpai still aren't here," Urayama says softly so the other members don't hear. "I asked Yamauchi-senpai and he said he saw them in the hallway so they're coming to school…"

"Just not to practice," Kirihara says.

Urayama nods.

If people skipped out last year, Kirihara never heard about it. None of the regulars ever skipped out, not even Niou. They respected Yukimura, even though he wasn't there half the year, and they wanted to win. Kirihara knows that no one respects him, but have all the third years lost their will to win? What happened to their drive? Did that disappear along with Yukimura?

Hirai and Azuma are really starting to piss him off, but he has someone else to deal with right now: Matsui.

"If they don't show up next week, we're going idiot hunting," Kirihara says. Urayama nods again, then jumps away to go warm up. Kirihara grabs a hold of the back of Matsui's collar, tugging. "Hey."

"What the hell, bastard?" Matsui snaps.

"Stay until everyone else is out of the locker room. We need to talk."

"Why?"

"Because I said so."

Even Matsui can't find room in his voice to argue.

"Whatever," Matsui mutters. "Let me go so I can change, pervert."

Kirihara changes in his back; he really needs to give the regulars their lockers. In the back of the room, there is a row of lockers which are slightly larger than all of the others in the school. They're located near the good showers, the ones reserved for the regulars, the only ones that actually get hot water and have places to hang towels so they don't get wet.

He changes and lingers in the back, passing time by fiddling with his phone and his wrist weights. Soon enough, everyone but Matsui is gone. The boy stands by the exit, not moving.

"Well?" Matsui says.

Kirihara comes over and leans near the door, trapping it shut with his foot. He doesn't need someone walking in and seeing him like this.

"Take them off," Kirihara grumbles, crossing his arms and not looking at Matsui because that bastard will be smirking any second now. "It's been four days. You'll actually hurt yourself at this point and I'm screwed if I don't have a half decent team for the tournament."

"Are you calling me half decent?"

"It's not a compliment, jerk."

"Sounds like one coming from a jackass like you." Matsui plays with the weights on his wrists. His hands are shaking, but Kirihara doesn't say anything even though he wants to more than anything. Matsui says, "This counts as my win."

"No, it doesn't."

"Yeah, it does."

Kirihara grits his teeth. "Yeah. Sure. Whatever."

Matsui grins. "Say it."

"What?"

"Say I beat you."

"No."

"Then I'll keep the weights on. Say it."

Kirihara turns red. He barely whispers, "You beat me."

Matsui's grin grows. "So does this mean you're running until your legs fall off?"

"That wasn't the deal. I only said _you_ would run."

"Well, then maybe I should keep them on," Matsui says. He rotates his weights, locking his jaw to hide the obvious pain it causes him. "I feel perfectly fine. But what was it you said about the tournament? Hmm, _Buchou_?"

"I will snap your neck."

"I think I could take even _more_ weight."

"_Okay_. I'll run until my legs fall off. Just take the damn things off."

Matsui walks closer to him and Kirihara grudgingly looks at him. The bastard is the same height as him with dark hair cut like that red head's from Hyotei only Matsui's hair is significantly shorter. He still has that stupid widow's peak, though, and his gray eyes are challenging him. Kirihara hates his guts. Just looking at him twists his stomach into knots and ulcers.

"How do I know you will?" Matsui asks. "Because I don't think you will, Buchou."

Kirihara rolls his eyes. "I'll be here Saturday morning at sunrise. If you want to come check, feel free."

"I think I will."

"Fine."

"_Fine_."

They lock gazes for several seconds before Matsui grins triumphantly, drops the weights to the floor, and leaves, forcing Kirihara's foot out of the way with his own. Kirihara waits all of ten seconds before turning and kicking the closed door.

Urayama squeaks.

"Are you eavesdropping?" Kirihara asks. He violently yanks the door open and sees Urayama standing on the other side. Urayama goes as white as a sheet. "Don't do something if you don't have the balls to admit it."

"I-I forgot my racket," Urayama says. "I can't do my racket swings. I'm sorry, Buchou."

"Stop apologizing all the damn time," Kirihara says like a broken record. Urayama nods and looks at the ground. "But you heard so at least I don't have to explain. Keep an eye on that ass and make sure his wrists are okay. I won't lose my first tournament because he's an idiot."

"Yes, Buchou."

It takes Kirihara a few minutes to realize something: Urayama finished his laps in record time.

* * *

By the end of the week, Kirihara has given up his search for Takeda-sensei, who has disappeared off the face of the earth as far as he is concerned. His friends are happy that he's staying for lunch, and even though he's only been gone a week, it feels like forever. He doesn't get a joke about grapes that has Hajime crying in laughter and he didn't know they were getting together at Shin's to study for their English quiz on Sunday. He didn't even know they had an English quiz.

He's halfway through his first lunch all week when Yamada comes in to his classroom. Her short hair is still covered in barrettes and she still has freckles all over her cheeks. Kirihara doesn't know why she wouldn't anymore. He nearly chokes on his juice when she approaches him; meanwhile, Jun actually spits his juice out all over Shin.

"Gross," Shin mutters, reaching for his napkin.

Jun turns bright red and stutters, "H-Hi."

"Hey." Yamada quickly looks at Kirihara. "So I talked to my advisor and your advisor—"

"Takeda-sensei? How could you find him? I tripped down the stairs twice looking for that devil."

"I don't know if you're expecting me to be nice and not laugh, but I'm going to laugh," Yamada says, smiling and laughing softly. Kirihara turns red.

_Dweeb_, Marui says.

Yamada goes on, "Like I was saying, I talked to our advisors and we booked the weight room for Tuesday and Thursday afternoon next week."

"How did you manage that?"

"You have extra clean up duty for a month and I have to clean all of the paint brushes in the art department." Kirihara groans and she nods. "Yup. Totally not awesome. But we got the room. We can either split it so I get it one day and you get it the other, or we could do combined practices and get more use from it. It's up to you."

He has no freaking clue what to do.

"What do you want to do?" he asks.

"My team needs all the time in that room that we can get. If you're up for combined practice, then so am I."

"Then let's do that."

Yamada takes the pen off of Kirihara's desk, grabs his wrist, and writes something on the back of his hand. "Here's my number if you want to plan anything special. I gotta go and grab something at the cafeteria or I'll starve to death. See you later, Kirihara-kun."

Yamada smiles and waves as she leaves, bouncing out of the room, her skirt short enough to show the spandex she has on underneath. Kirihara takes his phone out to add her number to his contacts.

"She's really cute," Jun says. He slams his hands onto Kirihara's desk with enough force to make the captain jump. Kirihara stares at his friend, bewildered. Jun looks determined to do something, that's for sure. "Can you give me my number? Wait. What was her name again?"

Kirihara frowns. "Do you really want to be slapped by another girl?"

"How do you know her?" Hajime asks. "I thought every girl in the school was scared of you."

Kirihara rolls his eyes. "Shut up. Not _every_ girl is scared of me."

"No, seriously," Hajime says, sounding doubtful. "How do you know a girl that cute?"

Kirihara sinks into his seat and he mumbles, "She's captain of the girls' team."

"Why is everything with you about tennis?" Shin asks.

Kirihara steals Jun's juice box and doesn't answer.

Jun kicks him then asks, "So wanna hang out this weekend?"

Kirihara remembers his deal with Matsui. "I can't Saturday."

"Why?"

Kirihara sighs. "Long story."

* * *

Azuma yawns into his hand as he lags behind Hirai and Matsui. He doesn't understand why Matsui insisted they come with him to school so early on a Saturday. Azuma doesn't even know why he went along. He doesn't even like Matsui.

Oh, right, something about Kirihara making a fool of himself. That's why he came.

_Not that he doesn't do that already_, Azuma thinks as they turn into the front gate. _And Matsui promised to buy lunch_, he remembers moments later.

"I doubt he's here," Matsui says smugly. "That idiot probably lied and skipped out on his bet. If he did, I'm going to have so much fun on Monday."

"Don't have too much fun, you may die," Azuma says sarcastically.

Hirai whirls around. "Huh? He's not really gonna die if he has too much fun, is he?" Hirai asks. He turns to Matsui. "Don't die! I know Mondays are the best day of the week—"

"I agree," Azuma lies, just to humor his partner.

Hirai practically beams at his partner. "I know, right? Mondays are the best! But you can't die just because of that, Matsui. Do you really think he'll die, Azuma?"

"I was joking again," Azuma says.

"Oh. Thank goodness! I thought you were serious this time. I was freaking out."

Matsui rolls his eyes, muttering, "Stupid doubles players."

"I heard that," Azuma says, more bored and tired than angry.

"Heard what?" Hirai asks. "Azuma, what'd you hear? Don't pretend not to hear me! Listen to meee."

"I heard a unicorn shitting rainbows," Azuma replies, face straight and voice bored, perhaps a little teasing but Hirai is not subtle enough to catch the playful mirth.

"That doesn't make sense. Don't lie to me," Hirai whines.

They head to the side of school to the tennis courts, but they don't see anything and Azuma is once against left to wonder why the hell he let a freak like Matsui drag him here in the first place. The courts are empty and the chain link fence is locked tight. Matsui grins victoriously and begins saying something about how he was right, this or that, blah-blah-blah. Azuma tunes him out.

Azuma wonders what the hell they're even supposed to be looking for when he spots something moving on the tracks in the distance.

Azuma yawns, covering his mouth with one hand and pointing to the tracks with his other. "Is someone running?" he asks.

Matsui shuts up.

_Thank the gods,_ Azuma thinks.

Matsui walks around to the back of the school where the track field is. Someone is very clearly running along the track, but they are too far away to make out any distinct features. Matsui goes closer and Hirai follows him, so Azuma goes too.

* * *

They go down the slope of the hill and stop at the grass surrounding the track where Kirihara is running. Not only is he there like he promised he would, he's jogging at a good, constant pace that Matsui could barely keep up for a few minutes. Is that freak superhuman or something?

"What time was sunrise?" Matsui asks.

"Like, six?" Hirai says. "That's when I wake up."

"It's ten now. You're telling me that idiot has been running like that for four hours?"

Kirihara runs past, stopping only to pick up a water bottle and take several long sips. He crushes the empty plastic in his hand. He tosses the bottle to the side, holding onto his knees as he gasps for air. Kirihara clutches at his shirt as his body heaves, his cheeks enlarging like he wants to throw up, but he keeps it down. He takes in a deep breath and keeps running.

So maybe he isn't superhuman, but it's still enough to piss off Matsui, who balls his hands into fists at the sight.

"Let's go," he says, turning and going back up the hill.

"Already?" Hirai asks. "Didn't you come here for something? Are you running with Kirihara? I didn't think you liked him."

"They're best friends," Azuma says.

"Really?"

"No."

"You're so mean, Azuma!" Hirai says, close to tears.

Matsui ignores the idiots and pretends he didn't see anything.

_Screw Kirihara_, he thinks, _the cocky bastard._


	3. Better Late Than Never

**Chapter 3.**  
_Better Late Than Never_

After Urayama has finished his morning run and Oyama has fed his cat, the two leave their neighboring apartments together, eating granola and talking as they walk to the train station. Even with the styled cowlick on the top of his head, Urayama doesn't reach Oyama's shoulder. The train is packed this time of day and Oyama stands to protect Urayama from perverts, who are much more afraid of the boy with shoulder length hair than the boy who looks like a girl from nearly every angle. Urayama seems unaffected by the situation and hums happily to a song stuck in his head, digging through Oyama's bag for a container of gummy bears. Urayama always says Oyama is like a walking, talking vending machine when it comes to candy.

At school, Urayama heads back to the tennis courts with a skip in his step, looking at the buds on the trees, then the grounds keeper cutting the grass near the track in the distance, and finally to the figures lingering outside of the locker room. Urayama frowns, though it looks more like a pout on his child-like face, and quickens his pace to find Nishimura and Yamauchi sitting with their backs to the wall of the locker room. Why are they outside in their school uniforms?

"Good morning, Urayama-kun," Yamauchi greets. He smiles and jumps to his feet, brushing off the dust on his uniform, while Nishimura stands more slowly with less bubbly enthusiasm. "You too, Oyama-kun," Yamauchi adds when the taller boy joins them.

"Kirihara-buchou hasn't shown up yet?" Urayama asks.

Nishimura shakes his head. "No."

Urayama meets Nishimura's vacant eyes and cringes. He knows vice-captains shouldn't be afraid of their own teammates and Nishimura is really friendly if you talk to him, but his eyes kind of freaking him out. Just a little. Okay, a lot.

Urayama digs into his bag, finds his keychain with his house keys, various colored ornaments, and the spare key to the locker room that Takeda-sensei gave him. He unlocks the door.

"I wonder if Kirihara-buchou is okay," Urayama thinks out loud, looking at Oyama as they all shuffle into the locker room. Oyama shrugs, like he honestly couldn't care less. Urayama frown-pouts. "That's not a good response, Kenta."

When Urayama and Oyama pass by, Nishimura looks at Urayama and asks, "Urayama-senpai, will you help me with my serve?"

"Sure!" Urayama replies happily.

"While they're doing that, do you want to rally together, Oyama-kun?" Yamauchi asks. He smiles as if they're best friends. Oyama is silent for a moment. Eventually he nods.

Nishimura walks out of the locker room after changing, followed by Yamauchi. Urayama takes a moment longer to change, but Oyama waits and they walk out together. Oyama sighs, licks his fingers, and fixes the curl on top of Urayama's head.

"Ew! Kenta, it's fine," Urayama says, swatting his hand away. "Now I have spit in my hair. Yucky, yucky, yucky."

"It was crooked," Oyama explains. "You hate when it's crooked."

Urayama reaches up to mess with his hair as he walks onto the courts. Oyama smiles.

* * *

_Crap, crap, crap! _Kirihara thinks as he runs through the school gate, tripping but miraculously catching his footing by flailing, and continues around back to the tennis courts. _I'm late!_

This wouldn't have happened if he had just doubled checked his alarm to make sure it was set for AM, not PM. Why would his phone think he'd need an alarm at six PM? Phones should just have programs that realize some people are dumb asses and adjust accordingly.

He had been woken up by his mom banging on his door, saying he was late and was going to miss his train at this rate (he did; he had to wait for the next one), and a text from Marui asking if he wanted to grab burgers and catch up. Like the few other messages that Kirihara has gotten from Marui, he ignores it. He doesn't want to explain how his team hates him, he doesn't want to suppress the urge to ask if Yukimura has talked about him, and he doesn't want to see his senpai's disappointed face.

Marui is the only one to have texted him recently. Before school started, Yanagi did about the round robin to decide regulars. Before that, it was Sanada (about tennis), Yagyuu (about tennis shoes), Jackal (for a video game marathon), and finally Niou (who lost his screwdriver). Yukimura hasn't talked to him in nearly two months now. Kirihara doesn't like to think about what that means.

Hell, he's heard more from Shiraishi from Shitenhouji than he has from Yukimura. Kirihara ignores those texts too because the last time he hung out with Shiraishi, he ended up covered in paint. Or watermelon? Something sticky and pink. He still isn't sure how that happened. Zaizen says he has a video but Kirihara doesn't want to see that even if his life depends on it.

Kirihara comes to a gradual stop at the courts. He spots Urayama helping Nishimura with his serve. Nishimura can still barely toss right from the look of it, but Urayama is smiling and telling him not to worry about it. Oyama and Yamauchi are rallying on court B.

_I thought that giant was a doubles player_, Kirihara thinks, walking down onto the courts and dropping his bag onto a bench. _But Oyama can keep up with Yamauchi. I guess he doesn't suck completely, then. Not that Yamauchi is great or anything._

And Yamauchi isn't taking it easier, either. It's only morning practice, but Yamauchi is running for balls that he could easily let slide and is trying harder than most people do at afternoon practice. Yamauchi is by no means an outstanding player. If anything, he's slightly above average, and Oyama is able to keep up with him with relative ease, but Yamauchi doesn't seem dissuaded by it at all.

_Azuma and Hirai still aren't here_, Kirihara thinks.

Matsui is working on a serve on court C away from the others, isolated. He looks more pissed than usual but Kirihara doesn't care enough to ask. As long as it doesn't affect his tennis.

Kirihara looks back at Nishimura and Urayama. Something about the situation triggers a memory from his first year shortly after he joined the club. Yukimura praised the power of his serve, but claimed its accuracy was deplorable and ordered Yanagi to help Kirihara every day after practice. Kirihara remembers hour-long lessons on how to control his serve, hitting strips of neon duct tape and swearing every time his Knuckle Serve went in the wrong direction. After long days, there were long nights under cheap stadium lights to help control his power, and on hot days, there were after practice snow balls at the shack near the train station.

Kirihara doesn't realize he's smiling until Yamauchi says, "Good morning, Buchou! You look happy today."

Kirihara blushes like a tomato, feeling stupid for getting happy at such a stupid memory with no real significance, and decides to imitate Yanagi and help Nishimura. He rolls up the sleeves of his school uniform and walks over to where Nishimura and Urayama are practicing.

"B-Buchou!" Urayama squeaks when he spots his captain.

"Good morning, Kirihara-buchou," Nishimura says robotically. He tosses the ball up, swings his racket, and misses completely.

"You're doing it wrong," Kirihara says.

Kirihara takes a ball from the box near Nishimura's feet. He holds out his other hand, waggling his fingers at Nishimura, who understand and gives him his racket.

"Don't hold the ball in your palm." Kirihara holds the ball in his fingers to show him. "When you toss, try not to put spin on it. Spins can give you some kick ass serves, but it makes the ball harder to control on the toss. Just open your hand when you bring it up."

Kirihara tosses the ball up a few inches, demonstrating. He stands at the baseline and remembers having this exact same conversation with Yanagi, or at least something pretty close to it. Yanagi used bigger words.

"Urayama has a fast serve, but it's accuracy is horrible," Kirihara says, seeing Urayama shuffle anxiously at the criticism, like he's expecting Kirihara to yell. "I don't know how the hell he got away with that last year, but you should just work on accuracy for now, Nishimura. There's no point in having a good serve if it goes out all the time."

Kirihara tosses the ball into the air, knees bent to jump, his tossing arm vertical. He jumps and swings his racket down. The racket strings make contact with the ball with a loud, hollow _thwack_ and the ball flies across the court and bounces up into the chain link fence with enough force to make the metal rattle.

"It takes practice to get the serve right, but you won't be able to serve if you don't get the toss down. Got all that? Because I don't feel like repeating that because you weren't listening."

Nishimura nods.

Kirihara digs into his back pocket for his phone, swearing when he sees the time. "We need to get to class. Put the balls away. You can leave the nets up. I think second year gym is using the courts for class."

Nishimura does as he's told, going to collect the balls.

"T-Thanks, Buchou," Urayama says. "I didn't know how to help. I'm not good at explaining."

"Your serve sucks," Kirihara says, blunt but not loud or angry. Urayama stares at the ground. "Try putting tape down and aiming at that. That's what Yanagi-senpai did with me."

"Okay. Thank you!"

* * *

Kirihara sleeps in class even though he slept in past his usual alarm and Hajime, Jun, and Shin put bits of balled up paper in his hair. He only realizes the paper is there because Jun is taking pictures, Shin can't stop laughing into his hand, and Hajime finally tells him when girls begin to giggle and point at him. Kirihara blushes and ruffles his hair.

At afternoon practice, Kirihara is still half asleep, but he's coherent enough to instruct the regulars to wait in the locker room and to tell everyone else to work on serves and returns on the courts.

"Why aren't we with everyone else today?" Matsui grumbles. "Going to start splitting us apart like Yukimura did? Finally stopped pretending to care about the rest of the team?"

"Shut up, Matusi," Kirihara says. "We're going to the weight room with the girls' team."

"But they're _girls_. They're weaker than us."

Kirihara remembers saying the exact same thing last year about the girls' team and his opinion hasn't drastically changed since then. But he holds his tongue because that's what Yukimura would do—isn't it?

No, it isn't. Yukimura would correct Matsui and talk about differences in a politically correct way that does not offend either gender. Yanagi would offer statistics and Sanada would threaten laps for any sexist behavior ("He totally has a crush on the singles-two girl," Marui would say to Niou and Jackal).

The weight room is located on the top floor of the gym and is home to racks of weights and dirty blue mats used for cheerleading and wrestling. It's hot and the stench of stale sweat is overwhelming. There are a few treadmills and other pieces of cardio equipment on the far side of the gym; stacks of weights are pushed off to the side, some haphazardly placed. The girls have yet to arrive.

Kirihara peers out the window overlooking the tennis courts to make sure no one is goofing off. There are no regulars to maintain order, but there are a few who are trying to do what they were told. The others are goofing off, talking in the stands and lazing about. Kirihara thinks he spots Nishimura waiting in line to serve, but it's hard to tell at this distance.

Urayama walks up besides Kirihara. "Buchou."

"What?" Kirihara replies.

"Those two still aren't here."

Kirihara locks his jaw and forms tight fists at his sides. "I swear I'll kill them," he says, mind going red with anger. "They wouldn't do this to Yukimura-buchou. They think I'm an idiot."

"I don't know what to say to that, Kirihara-buchou…"

"Hey!" a female voice calls.

Kirihara turns along with the rest of the boys. The girls' team comes up in a mob, laughing and talking to one another, with Yamada in the front. She is shorter than every other girl on her team but significantly larger in other places; not with fat, but with muscle. Some of the girls are wearing the yellow polos and white skirts from their uniforms, while others are the wearing gym uniforms. Some are wearing spandex and others are not and Kirihara hopes a jerk like Matsui won't stare. Kirihara hopes _he _won't stare.

Kirihara swallows hard. This was a bad idea.

Yamada is wearing her usual barrettes that keep her short dark hair out of her freckled face. She looks at her regulars and they stop walking, lingering near the boys, and Yamada alone comes over to Kirihara.

"This place is awesome, right?" Yamada says. Kirihara nods, his anger disappearing now that he has something else to focus on—tennis practice. Yamada goes on, "So how do you want to do this?"

"Um," Kirihara says eloquently. Yamada laughs at him and Kirihara burns red.

"I think I have an idea," Urayama says.

"Go for it," Yamada says, smiling.

"I was thinking people could separate based on weight and we could rotate around the room while recording out maxes."

"I like that. It's safer and that way less loose weights will be moved around. What's your name?"

"Urayama Shiita. I'm a second year. I'm—"

"He's my vice-captain," Kirihara grumbles like a child.

"Awesome. Nice to meet you, Urayama-kun. You should talk to Genji on my team; she's my vice-captain. Speaking of teams" —Yamada looks to Kirihara—"I don't think your team is going to listen to me because teenage boys are jerks. So why don't you get this show on the road, Kirihara-kun? If any of my girls are too pretty and you get nervous, I've got your back."

"I won't get nervous."

Yamada grins. "Sure you won't."

Kirihara goes to address the crowd, followed by Yamada and Urayama. His regulars and Yamada's regulars stare at him. _Great_, he thinks, _now I get to screw up in front of twice as many people._

"We agreed that it'd be best to split into groups based on weight class. Uh, groups of—" He stops, looking to Yamada for assistance.

"Groups of four should be fine," Yamada says.

"If you don't know how to use the equipment, ask someone who does. I know, and Yamada-chan knows, and a few others on the girls' team should know. Use spotters and if you drop a weight on someone's foot, you'll be running until you die."

Matsui gets a bitter look at that. More bitter than usual.

"Just pick a piece of equipment and get started," Kirihara finishes. He looks to Yamada to see if she has anything else to add.

Yamada puts her hands on her hips and says, "Alright, get going. I want maxes for squats, bench, dead lift, and power clean—bring it to your chest, not above your head. Well? Get to it!"

Her voice commands attention and her words demand action. Even Matsui grudgingly goes to join the forming group of boys and girls to discuss who is paired with whom.

"You're two people short," Yamada says to Kirihara, sounding confused. "Are they late?"

"They're a doubles pair. They keep skipping practice." Yamada nods slowly. "Of the four guys who showed, one is scared of me, his partner looks like he wants to kill me, one acts like we're best friends, and the other hates my guts."

"So that whole conversation about your team being good was a lie?"

"Kinda. Yeah."

"Gotcha." Yamada looks at him. Her eyes are firm, a captain's eyes, and her voice does not waver when she says, "They're never going to respect you if you don't respect yourself. Whatever's going on your brain, stop it. You're their captain. Stand your ground."

"But they don't listen to me. How can I stand my ground if no matter what I say, they won't listen? I'm trying to be like Yukimura-buchou, but it's not working."

"Yamada-buchou!" one of the girls says. "We need to know how much you weigh to sort out groups!"

"Okay!" Yamada replies. She looks at Kirihara one last time, and even her freckles seem disappointed with him, and she goes to join the teams.

* * *

On Wednesday, Kirihara is beyond sore. Weight training kicked his ass last year and nothing has changed since then. When he wakes up, he soaks in the bathtub instead of finishing his history homework. His older sister bangs on the bathroom door, telling him to hurry up so she can shower or she's going to be late for school. Kirihara stays five more minutes before his sister opens the door with the key. He screams like a girl and covers his crotch. It's his own fault, but under no circumstances does he want his older sister to see his penis.

He eats on his way to school, sitting on the train instead of standing because his legs are tight and ache. His arms feel like rubber and he wonders how he's going to do pushups at afternoon practice.

_Thank gods I canceled morning practice._

He has trouble bending his knee to change his shoes at his cubby in the lobby, and he wants to scream when Jun slaps his arm as he says, "Good morning!" Instead of screaming, Kirihara rubs his arm and makes a pathetic noise. Jun laughs at his melodramatic pain.

"Screw you," Kirihara grumbles.

"Sorry, sorry," Jun laughs. "I'll buy you some juice at lunch, okay?"

"And chips."

"Ugh. I'm not made of money, Akaya."

"You hit me! Do you know how bad finding your max is, or how evil big pyramids are? Let me tell you how bad they are. Remember that time a girl kicked you in the—"

"You promised never to mention that again!"

"And I won't if you get me juice and chips."

"_Fine_. I'll get you juice _and_ chips."

But as the day goes on, Kirihara thinks about what Yamada said yesterday in the weight room and he doesn't think he'll be staying in his classroom for lunch.

_Stand your ground_, Yamada's voice rings.

_Stop thinking, Akaya. _ _Do what Yukimura would do._

He decides that he's going to make Hirai and Azuma come to practice, or he's kicking them off the regulars. He skips out on lunch, tells Jun he can get him his snacks another time, and heads downstairs to the second year classrooms. He needs Urayama.

His vice-captain may be a weakling, but Yukimura must have made him his vice-captain for a reason, right? Besides, Urayama knows more about Hirai and Azuma than he does.

Somehow Kirihara ends up near the library, then the art studio, but he finds it on his third attempt. He stands in the doorway to class B and spots Urayama and Oyama near the windows. Urayama is sitting on top of Oyama's desk, which has been circled by desks occupied by both boys and girls. Urayama laughs with them, but Oyama looks quiet and stoic, though he looks less awkward than Sanada did in similar situations. Some of the girls try to talk to Oyama and he responds, but he doesn't start conversations with them. Urayama's bubbly laughter fills the room and everyone else is laughing with him.

This isn't the same Urayama who hides from him at practice, who has no backbone, who can barely stand straight up, is it?

Kirihara crosses the room and when Urayama sees him approaching, he goes silent. He jumps off the desk and meets him halfway in front of the teacher's desk, head a little lower and fingers twisting together nervously in front of him. Definitely the same Urayama.

"W-w-what is it, Buchou?" Urayama asks.

"Hirai and Azuma still haven't shown up for practice," Kirihara responds, shoving his hands into his pockets and trying to act like he isn't swallowing his pride. Yukimura never would have had to do this. "We're going to go find them. Do you know what class they're in?"

Urayama shakes his head.

"Great," Kirihara sighs. "Whatever. Let's go. There's only fifteen more minutes until lunch ends and I want to eat."

"How long did it take you to find this room?" Urayama asks, looking confused. Lunch is only half an hour.

"I got a little lost, okay?" It must come out harsher than he thought it did because Urayama quiets again.

Kirihara looks at Oyama and Urayama follows his gaze. The giant second year and their friends are staring at them. Kirihara has found himself on the receiving end of that predatory glare multiple times now and it still unsettles him. It's calm, and calculating, and downright scary. Everything about Oyama seems scary, even to a demon like Kirihara.

Urayama says, "Kenta, I'll be back in a bit. Don't let Godo steal my fruit cup."

"I wasn't going to!" a boy says, and a girl replies, "Liaaar. You were eyeing it since he pulled it out." They all laugh.

Oyama nods. Urayama smiles.

Kirihara leaves the room and heads for the stairs, and Urayama follows, having to walk faster to keep up with his shorter legs. They enter the stairwell.

"How tall are you?" Kirihara asks, looking down at the shorter boy.

"One hundred and fifty one centimeters."

"You're short."

"Sorry."

"Don't apologize for _that._ How tall is your partner?"

"Kenta's around a hundred and eighty."

Kirihara knew Oyama was tall, but he didn't think the kid was _that_ tall. Is Oyama really a second year? Is he really Japanese? Yamauchi is as tall as a lot of the guys on the volleyball team and he doesn't even come close to Oyama's height.

"Third year classrooms are on this floor, Kirihara-buchou," Urayama says, smiling and pointing to the door. Kirihara stops halfway up another set of stairs and looks back.

"I knew that." Kirihara turns red first and then exits onto the third floor. He hates how this school is planned. It makes no damn sense.

They stand just to the side of the open door of the first classroom and poke their heads in like they're in a cheesy comic book. Urayama is short enough to not bonk his head on the bottom of Kirihara's chin while they look for the two boys.

It occurs to Kirihara that he has no idea what Hirai or Azuma look like.

"Do you know what they look like?" Kirihara asks.

Urayama shakes his head.

Kirihara swears violently.

"Kirihara-buchou?" a voice from inside the room calls. Kirihara scans for its owner and sees Yamauchi smiling and waving at the front of the room. Like Urayama and Oyama had been, Yamauchi is surrounded by people. So he looks like a jock _and_ he's popular. Kirihara remembers going to Marui and Niou's classroom for lunch and seeing the same thing.

"Yamauchi-senpai knows what they look like," Urayama says.

Kirihara moves out of hiding and goes to the front of the room where Yamauchi is sitting with his friends. Urayama returns Yamauchi's friendly smile.

"What are you doing here with Urayama-kun, Buchou?"

"Do you know what class Hirai and Azuma are in?" Kirihara asks.

"Right next door. I can point them out, if you want." Yamauchi doesn't sound like he's accusing Kirihara of not knowing what his regulars look like. Kirihara doesn't get this guy. Who's this honestly friendly?

"Thanks," Kirihara says.

Yamauchi keeps smiling, tells his friends he'll be back in time for science lab, and the three head out of the room. They stop at the next room and just like before, they line up from tallest to shortest and look into the room with just their heads like some stupid mystery cartoon. Urayama holds onto the doorframe, and his cowlick is still straight despite the angle of his head, and Kirihara has the overwhelming urge to laugh.

He laughs.

"_Ack!_" someone inside the room shouts. "Kirihara!"

The three look at each other, Kirihara still grinning for some damnable reason, and they straighten up to go inside. The boy who shouted covers his mouth with both hands and a boy next to him sinks down into his chair like he wants to disappear, but he does not look as concerned as the first boy. If anything, the second boy looks pissed off.

Kirihara has no idea who they are.

Yamauchi leans down and whispers into his ear, "Hirai is covering his mouth and Azuma is the one trying to disappear."

Kirihara nods and Yamauchi straightens back up.

"What do you want with us?" Azuma asks.

Azuma is average looking with straight dark brown hair and skin that is neither dark nor pale. His brown eyes are framed by heavy black-purple circles. He's skinny with no real muscle on him, his wrists so tiny Kirihara wonders how he picks up a textbook without it snapping. He looks bored and cynical, an exemplary example of a stereotypical, angst-filled teenage boy. Kirihara would never notice him in a crowd even if he was looking for him.

Hirai slowly uncovers his mouth. "Are you going to kill us?" he asks softly.

Hirai is the complete opposite of his partner. His skin is several shades lighter than everyone else in the room, so light it must be foreign, and his hair is fluffy and blond. His face and body are fuller than Azuma's, but not quite pudgy. His blue eyes keep nervously flicking between Azuma and Kirihara. Kirihara wonders if the kid drinks nothing but coffee; Hirai looks ready to jump out the window in anxious fear.

Unlike Urayama, Oyama, and Yamauchi, Hirai and Azuma are sitting by themselves.

"Come to practice or you're off the team," Kirihara says firmly.

"That's all?" Azuma replies blankly. "I thought you were going to threaten to kill us."

"Don't give him any ideas!" Hirai says quickly.

"You said it first," Azuma points out.

Hirai looks at Kirihara and laughs nervously. "We'll be there, promise! No need to kill anyone."

Azuma leans over to Hirai, looks him dead in the eye, and says, "He'll kill you if you're lying."

"Ah! Don't do that! I'm not lying. We'll go to practice, Buchou, I swear! So please don't kill us!"

_Why are all of my regulars such freaks? _Kirihara wonders. He currently chooses not to acknowledge that his team used to have a trickster who liked to wear makeup and wigs, a genius who could recite one hundred digits of pi, and a vice-captain who carried around a rock for training—and that's just the tip of the ice-berg.

"Just show up to practice," Kirihara mutters. He shoves his hands into his pockets and leaves with Yamauchi and Urayama. When they're in the hall, he says, "Thanks for the help, I guess."

"No problem, Kirihara-buchou," Yamauchi says with a smile. "If you need anything else, just let me know. I'm happy to help."

He jogs back to his class.

Kirihara glances at Urayama. "Your classroom is that way," Urayama says, pointing. "I think…"

Kirihara presses his lips together and nods, unsure of what else to say. He begins to walk one way and Urayama goes the other. Kirihara would have walked straight past his classroom if Jun hadn't shouted out his name.

* * *

Hirai and Azuma begin to show up practice after that. They don't seem happy about it, but it's something. Azuma collapses onto the ground after warm-ups and moans that he's going to die, and Hirai must be convinced his partner is telling the truth because he nearly starts to cry. Kirihara actually sees tears. Matsui calls them drama queens, but hangs out with them in the locker room and during practice. Kirihara wonders if the three of them are friends.

Even though Azuma bitches and Hirai is so overdramatic that Kirihara wants to punch him, they're still here. Kirihara has a full team of regulars.

_Better late than never_, Kirihara thinks.

* * *

That's exactly what Yamada says when their regulars meet in the weight room on Thursday afternoon. Practice with the girls isn't nearly as bad as Kirihara thought it would be. Some of them are a lot stronger than they look, especially Yamada, who can out bench all of the guys with exception of Kirihara, and even the "weak" girls are trying hard. Azuma and Urayama are so skinny and tiny that they're placed in groups with girls, and Oyama is so tall and heavy that only Kirihara and Yamada compare in weight. Kirihara wonders just how much Yamada has to work out to be so short and weight as much as someone as tall as Oyama.

Yamada is not like Yukimura, but she is at the same time. Yukimura is a natural leader with the kind of charisma that only the great possess, the kind belonging to those with the power to change history. Yamada is rougher around the edges, yet she is bold and commands attention. It seems to come naturally to her. Kirihara is not so lucky.

Kirihara and Yamada linger by the cardio equipment while their vice-captains run warm up stretches. Urayama looks so lost it actually makes Kirihara laugh and the girls' vice-captain is so pretty that even Matsui listens to her despite her gender. Azuma lazily stretches while Hirai says something about his shoulder coming out of its socket.

"At least they're here. Better late than never, right?" Yamada says.

"I guess," Kirihara responds.

"Did you stand your ground or blackmail them?" Yamada grins like Niou would—physically, at least. It lacks the underlying slyness and twisted mirth that Kirihara associates with Niou. The thought runs through his brain in a second and the female captain is still talking, "Because if you blackmailed them, you're kind of totally awesome."

"They saw me and Hirai was so scared of me that he screamed."

"Screamed?"

"It was more like a squeak. It was really funny, actually."

"I bet."

"Buchou, we're done stretching!" the female vice-captain shouts. Kirihara thinks her name is Genji. "These boys couldn't spread their legs if their lives depended on it."

Yamada laughs again. She collects herself quickly and turns to address the two teams. She speaks firmly and loudly, "Alright, everyone split into your groups. Since you know your maxes, I expect everyone to do a big pyramid for bench and squat. Set percentages are on the wall."

"I didn't know there was a paper for that," Kirihara says. "Last year, Yanagi-senpai told us them."

"There isn't a paper. I wrote them on the wall with a sharpie." Yamada shrugs and Kirihara wants to laugh until it hurts, but doesn't. "Hey," she says, grinning slightly, "I bet I can bench more than you. Our maxes were pretty close."

"Yeah, right," Kirihara replies. "I don't lose to anyone."

"Oh yeah? I doubt that."

"Loser cleans all the equipment."

"You're on, Kirihara-kun."

Kirihara can out bench her by five pounds, but she beats him at squats. They call it a tie and clean the equipment together.


	4. Unexpected

**Chapter 4.**  
_Unexpected_

Urayama runs until his mind is empty. The feeling is calming, numbing almost, and he keeps running until his legs tense, and his muscles ache, and his lungs protest every breath that keeps him going past his limits. He comes to a gradual stop at the park near his house, panting as he reaches around his back into his gym bag for his water bottle. He drinks like a dying man and his mouth is still as dry as sand. He checks his time and distance, smiling at the decrease in the first and increase in the later.

_Gotta get back for breakfast_, he thinks.

He puts his water bottle back inside his bag, pushes himself the entire way home, and takes the elevator as a reward for going an extra half-mile. He lives on the thirteenth floor of a large, upscale apartment complex on the edge of the city, and going up the stairs can be a challenge some days and a form of torture on others. Today, it would have been a torture.

Urayama brings his shirt up to wipe the sweat off his face, fishing his keys out of his bag and opening the door to his apartment. He calls out, "I'm back! Anyone home?"

"In the kitchen."

Urayama moves through the living room and into the kitchen where his older sister is cooking. She has on their mother's apron with her auburn hair pinned up. If Urayama were slightly taller and had longer hair, he would be the spitting image of his sister.

"Morning, Nee-san," Urayama says. "Where's Mom?"

"She left for work right after you left for your run. She made us lunches, though."

"And Dad?"

"I don't think he came home last night." Urayama frowns, but he can't focus on the familiar feeling of sadness for too long. His sister adds, "I can smell you from here. Go shower. By the time you're done, I'll be done with breakfast."

She's right—he stinks.

"'kay, 'kay."

By the time Urayama comes back, twirling the top of his hair with his finger, his sister has already plated the food and put it on the table. Oyama is sitting at one chair—Urayama isn't surprised; he smiles and says, "Morning, Kenta!"—and Urayama's sister is cleaning up at the sink instead of eating. The kitchen, like the rest of the apartment with the exception of the children's bedrooms, hardly looks lived in. The sharp angels are unwelcoming and the stainless steel appliances are free of fingerprints. There are no pictures on the coffee table, the key dish is almost always empty, and the dining table is never filled.

"Do you have to leave early?" Urayama asks, noticing that she's in her high school uniform already. His sister is rarely ready to leave so early in the morning. She usually leaves after Urayama since her school is close by comparatively.

"Yeah, sorry, Shiita. Big science test today and some girls and I are going to study. Mom said she'll text me if she won't be home for dinner. I'll make you something if she isn't, okay? Just let me know if Kenta-kun is coming."

"I probably will be," Oyama says. "My parents are both away."

Urayama's sister laughs, covering her discomfort at the idea of a thirteen year old boy being left alone. "You should just move in."

"Or I should move in with him," Urayama says.

His sister comes over, kisses his temple, and says, "Have a good day. Stay out of trouble. Don't do drugs."

Urayama laughs as she leaves. Urayama finally sits at the table, his legs crossed and tucked beneath him, and eats. He's starving.

"I need to get duct tape on the way to school," Urayama says, mouth full, but he knows Oyama will understand him.

"Why?" Oyama asks.

"Because Kirihara-buchou said I could work on the accuracy of my serve if I put tape down and aimed at that. I kinda forgot until this morning when I was running. I want to try his idea 'cause Buchou's serve is the best I've seen. I'm going to stay late with Nishimura-kun and Yamauchi-senpai after practice today, and I want to practice my serve with them. So I need duct tape."

"Alright," Oyama says. "I think there's a hardware store near the train station. If we leave a few minutes early, we can stop by."

Urayama smiles.

* * *

By the time they two get to school, Kirihara has unlocked the locker room and morning practice has started. The doubles pair changes quickly and comes out to join the other regulars and Nishimura, who has come to more morning practices than Hirai and Azuma. When Urayama and Otama get to the courts, Hirai and Azuma are practicing their volley, and Nishimura is serving while Yamauchi is receiving. Kirihara and Matsui are arguing at the gate.

"You can't eat on the courts!" Kirihara says.

"It's your fault for holding morning practice!" Matsui shouts. "If I didn't have to wake up at the ass crack of dawn for this pointless practice, I would have time to eat at home!"

"What did you say about practice?"

"I _said_—"

Oyama looks at Urayama. "Shiita, should you stop them? Kirihara is making a fool of himself… again."

Urayama knows he should, but Kirihara will only yell at him, and how will that help anything? That will only add fuel to Matsui's flame and with Urayama's luck, the two will continue to fight at afternoon practice when the rest of the team is present and they don't have time for that. The tournament is only a few weeks away.

"I think I'll pass," Urayama says, smiling, unsure if that's the right choice. But it's too late, he already said it. Oh, well. "Why don't you practice with Hirai- and Azuma-senpai, Kenta? I want to see how Yamauchi-senapi and Nishimura-kun are."

Urayama leaves his partner to join Yamauchi and Nishimura, who has improved rapidly during the small number of practices this year. With Kirihara's help, Nishimura has finally been able to serve properly. It isn't the best, and it lacks power, but he's hitting it, and every time his racket makes contact with the ball, Nishimura's dead eyes light up a little bit. It makes helping him worthwhile, at least to Urayama.

"Good morning, Urayama-kun," Yamauchi greets pleasantly. "How's your day been so far?"

"Great," Urayama replies. "I ran an extra half mile this morning."

"Do you run every morning?" Urayama nods. "That's impressive. I try to run to keep in shape and all that, but it's hard. I don't have the commitment," Yamauchi laughs.

"I think you have commitment, Senpai. You're always one of the first ones to morning and afternoon practice, and sometimes I see you training after practice."

"You see that?" Yamauchi rubs the back of his head and looks embarrassed. Urayama doesn't know _why_ he would be embarrassed. Hard work is something to be proud of, not ashamed of.

Urayama smiles and nods. "Yup! I admire your hard work."

"I'm not like Kirihara-buchou, or the old senpai from last year," Yamauchi says. His smile is a little more sullen than usual, but it's no less sincere. Urayama sees Nishimura watching them like a hawk with those unsettling eyes. Yamauchi goes on, "I have to work hard. I'm not a genius."

"Neither am I," Urayama says.

Yamauchi's smile seems more genuine. He asks, "Do you want to rally with me and Nishimura-kun? He's gotten a lot better! It's really impressive, actually."

"Thanks," Nishimura says quietly.

"Well?" Yamauchi prompts.

"'kay!"

* * *

Urayama sits behind Oyama in the line of desks that runs along the windows of their classroom. Since Oyama is so tall, Urayama is able to sleep, or doodle, or do basically anything except pay attention, which Urayama is prone to do. Time drags on slowly until lunch comes and even slower after that. At the end of the day, Urayama jumps out of his seat with vigor and heads out to the hall with Oyama where they meet up with Kobayakawa from the class next door.

"Hey-o!" Kobayakawa greets with a friendly smile. "Do you know what we're doing for practice, Fukubuchou? It's still so weird calling you that. You're nothing like Sanada."

"Is that a good thing?" Urayama asks.

"It's a good thing," Oyama says.

"I wasn't asking you, Kenta." Urayama taps Oyama with a gentle fist and Kobayakawa laughs. The conversation changes topics when Kobayakawa begins to talk about this substitute teacher they had, and how she was really attractive, and young, and "totally into me!"

"I bet she was," Urayama laughs.

"She was!" Kobayakawa insists.

When they get near the locker rooms, they can hear Kirihara and Matsui shouting. Urayama makes a sour expression (according to a laughing Kobayakawa), wishing he could shrink into Oyama's shadow. He was so excited when Yukimura named him vice-captain. He still is excited to be vice-captain. But he doesn't know how to deal with Kirihara.

"Maybe he'll wear himself out?" Kobayakawa suggests.

"Maybe," Urayama says hopefully.

By the time he's changed and out on the courts for warm-ups, Kirihara has stopped yelling. That's good, right? Urayama counts the posts in the fence on his first lap, then switches to the number of trees around the courts, and switches back to the posts in the fence on his fifth lap. He's about to keep running when Oyama puts a hand on his shoulder.

"Shiita, you've already done an extra lap," Oyama says calmly. Urayama grins and rubs the back of his head, his cheeks a little more pink than usual. "You got distracted again, didn't you?" Oyama asks.

"Guess so." Urayama shrugs. "Hold my legs when I do my crunches?"

"Alright."

"You guys are done running already?" Kobayakawa moans as he slowly jogs past them. He sounds like he's dying.

Practice has yet to become smooth. Kirihara either stumbles over his words or shouts angrily when handing out practice assignments. Today is a combination of the two.

"So today we're doing, um," Kirihara pauses.

"Practice matches," Urayama reminds him quietly from his side. Oyama watches Kirihara from the misshapen mob of boys, like he's waiting for Kirihara to cross the line and actually hurt Urayama. Last year, everyone lined up without being told to. This year, no one listens when Kirihara tells them to.

"I know!" Kirihara snaps, a little too loud. He looks back at the club, arms crossed, face red with embarrassment and anger. "We're doing three-game practice matches. Regulars are referring. Start with third years and go down."

Kirihara walks away and the club takes that as their cue to move. Kirihara smacks his face, his cheeks stinging red, probably thinking no one saw.

Urayama sees. He doesn't say anything.

Oyama says something to Urayama, who gets up on his tiptoes and grabs Oyama's elbow for leverage so he can look to the side of the courts with wide eyes.

"Kirihara-buchou," Urayama says. "I-I think someone's here to see you."

* * *

Kirihara follows Urayama's eyes and he thinks he's seeing things.

Marui waves, blows a large green bubble, and Jackal shouts, "Akaya!"

It's the first time he's seen them in weeks. When was the last time he talked to them? A month before the start of the school year? Why now? They didn't say anything about showing up.

Marui and Jackal come in through the open gate and walk over to Kirihara, who stands frozen in place in shock. Marui claps him on the back while Jackal ruffles his hair. The shock passes and Kirihara smiles and laughs, curling forward to get away from their familiar hands. Marui laughs along with him and takes Kirihara into a headlock.

"Let go, Marui-senpai."

"Nu-huh," Marui says. "You didn't answer my texts. You don't get to tell me what to do, Bakaya."

Marui doesn't sound hurt, though. He keeps his grip loose enough that Kirihara could break free if he really wanted to, which he doesn't.

"Bunta, maybe you should stop," Jackal says.

"Why?"

"The team is staring."

Everyone on the courts has stopped what they're doing to rubberneck and stare at the three. The older members recognize Marui and Jackal, and maybe some of the younger members do too from magazines or the pictures in the trophy case in the lobby. Marui and Jackal are from the old regime, when Rikkaidai was headed by a divine ruler, not some demon who doesn't know how to give orders without shouting. The two high schoolers seem to shine a little brighter than everyone else on the courts—every one of the old regulars did, except for Kirihara, who burned red and made everyone around him equally colored.

Azuma says something that has Matsui laughing obnoxiously loud into the silence; Hirai looks suddenly panicked.

Kirihara breaks away from Marui, embarrassed, and at the same time Marui releases his hold. Kirihara ruffles his hair back into place, tries to will the blush away, and clears his throat. Marui blows a bubble, unaffected by the situation.

"Get back to wo-_rk!_" Kirihara says, voice cracking on the last syllable. Marui snickers. Jackal grins. Kirihara looks at them, ignoring his team again. "Don't make fun of me! Your voices cracked last year, too!"

Marui slings an arm around Kirihara's shoulder and leans on him. Marui got taller again. Jackal did, too. Marui looks at the boys on the courts, who haven't gone back to work like Kirihara told them to.

"Hey, second and third years, remember me?" Marui calls out loudly. There's a bit of shuffling. Marui smiles, smug. "Yeah, I thought so. Listen to Akaya, alright? Or I'll get Sanada to come back and whoop your asses into shape."

Marui speaks with unwavering confidence and the reaction is immediate. Everyone gets back to practice and works harder than they have all day. The first years seem confused, but they follow their upperclassmen and Marui's orders.

Marui grins at Kirihara. "That's how you do it."

Jackal ruffles Kirihara's hair again to ease the tension.

"Hi, Marui-senpai, Kuwahara-senpai," Urayama says awkwardly, addressing them for the first time. Oyama stands back a few feet.

"Hey," Marui says. He tilts his head, almost knocking his skull against Kirihara's in the process. "Urayama, right?"

"Y-yes!"

"Keep an eye out for Akaya, will ya?" Marui turns his head to smile at Kirihara teasingly. "Give him a talking to if you need to, like you did to Sanada. This kid can't keep out of trouble."

"Hey!" Kirihara protests. "I haven't gotten detention once this year."

"I'm proud of you," Marui deadpans.

"Get back to practice, Akaya," Jackal says, sighing slightly. "We'll hang out afterwards."

Marui finally lets go of Kirihara, waves at Urayama and Oyama, says, "Keep working on that cool volley of yours," and then leaves with Jackal to sit on a hill with short cut grass just outside of the fence. Kirihara can hear them laughing from the courts.

"Buchou," Urayama says, smiling and bouncing towards him. "You seem happy."

_You do too_, Kirihara nearly says, but not isn't the time for that.

"Help me get these guys in order," Kirihara says. He looks at Oyama. "You too, I guess. Do you ever practice, or do you just follow Urayama around?"

"Yes," Oyama says. Kirihara doesn't know which question that applies to.

Kirihara goes back to practice, hyper aware that Marui and Jackal are watching him, that they'll probably go and tell Yukimura and others how he's doing. He takes in a deep breath, goes to check everyone's form, and makes sure that his voice carries across the courts to Marui and Jackal. He's always tried to impress them with his tennis. Now, it's time to show them he can handle what they trusted him with: their team.

Urayama and Oyama go around together helping Kirihara; Urayama offers encouragement and Oyama points things out to Urayama when the vice-captain becomes scattered-brained. Urayama is scattered-brained a lot, Kirihara notices.

Matsui, Hirai, and Azuma are compliant for the first time, and Kirihara is too happy that they listen to him to be mad that they'll only following his orders because Marui told them to. That's an issue for another day. The three troublemakers do their punishments when necessary, and without lacking off, and they go straight back to place without much trouble. Kirihara has to call Matsui an idiot once or twice (maybe four times, at most), but it's the easiest practice he's had yet.

Kirihara skips his shower, tells Urayama to lock up, and jogs out of the locker room to find his teammates on a bench. Marui jumps to his feet and says, "Jackal's gonna treat us to burgers."

"I never said that."

"La-la-la, I can't hear you," Marui says with a shit-eating grin. "Can you hear him, Akaya? Wow. How amazing. What was that? You'll pay for burgers _and _new grip tape? You're the best, Jackal."

"One day, you're going to be found dead in a ditch and I'm going to be the one who put you there, Bunta."

"Don't be mean, Jackal," Marui says.

"Oh, _now_ you can hear me?"

Kirihara smiles and laughs. He walks between the two towards a diner down the street that they've frequented after practice for the last two years. He remembers going there after long practices with the entire team, his old team, the only team that matters. It's cheap, has the best milkshakes within walking distance, and there's a booth large enough to fit all of the regulars without having to pull up spare chairs. Kirihara's been squished up against Sanada's thigh and Niou's boney ass one too many times, but it's always worth it. After Yukimura's first practice after his release, they sat in the booth in the corner for at least two hours. The place smells like burned food, grease that could clog an artery with one drop, and the upsetting fumes of hospital-grade disinfectant.

Marui orders a milkshake with extra, extra whipped cream, Kirihara buys his favorite heart attack on a bun, and Jackal pays with a sigh and a, "I swear, one day I'll start a running tab for you two."

Marui and Kirihara chime in with a unified, "Thank you," though Marui's comes with an eye roll.

They sit in a booth against the front of the shop in the warm sun coming through the window, Marui and Jackal on one side and Kirihara on the other. The leather is uncomfortably hot against Kirihara's bottom, and his burger is dripping with grease, and his fries are salty enough to kill a slug the size of Hokkaido, but the familiarity of it all puts him at ease. He finally feels as if he can breathe again, for the first time since they graduated.

"How's high school?" Kirihara asks. "Did everyone make the team?"

"Yup. Even Jackal managed."

"Hey," Jackal exclaims.

Marui goes on, ignoring Jackal, "We probably won't be playing until Nationals, though. Wild cards and secret plays and all that. Of course, everyone already knows who we are—especially me—but we've gotten a lot stronger since last year and Yukimura suggested keeping our new styles a secret. Yukimura isn't captain or anything, but the captain has him by his side all the time. He can't be captain until his third year, apparently. It's all politics. He's obviously being groomed for the position."

"You make it sound like he's a dog," Jackal says. "Can you imagine Yukimura with a collar?"

"And Sanada with a leash?" Marui adds.

Kirihara laughs because for some reason, it's the funniest thing he's heard in a long time. He's missed this. He's messed _them_.

Marui eats the whipped cream on top of his milkshake with a spoon then lets Kirihara dip his fries into the half-melted chocolate shake beneath.

"How's your team?" Marui asks. "It's weird calling it your team since you're such a brat."

"Be nice," Jackal says.

It sounds like a conversation Marui and Jackal would have in his head.

_I'm insane_, Kirihara thinks.

Marui dips his fries like Kirihara, who has stopped eating and is avoiding their eyes by staring at the cheap tabletop. Suddenly, that spot of dried ketchup is the most fascinating thing in the world.

"Akaya?" Jackal says at his silence, sounding concerned all of the sudden. Marui frowns, brow furrowed, and continues to eat without saying anything.

"The team is fine," Kirihara says, still unable to look at doubles pair. The lie tastes like ash and his pride prickles under his feet like spikes to prevent him from telling the truth. "Everything is fine," he says.

"That's good," Marui says. "Yukimura and the others were worried."

"Huh? Why would you be worried?"

"You wouldn't answer our texts," Marui says this as he steals one of Jackal's chicken tenders. He rips it in two, gives half to Kirihara, and dips the other half in his milkshake. A bitter part of Kirihara thinks that only Marui has texted him since school started. It wasn't "our" texts at all. "Yukimura wanted us to come and see you. He told us to skip practice and come here to check out the team."

Yukimura was worried? Then why didn't _he_ come? Why isn't Yukimura sitting across from him, treating him to fast food and cracking jokes with him? Yukimura is not the captain of the high school team, yet Marui and Jackal treat him like he is. Kirihara's team doesn't even accept that he currently is the captain.

"Oh," is all Kirihara can say.

"So who made the regulars?" Marui asks. "Anyone we'd know?"

Kirihara shrugs, unsure. "Matsui and Yamauchi are the other singles players. Urayama and Oyama are doubles, and so are Hirai and Azuma. Everyone's a third year but Urayama and Oyama."

"Was Oyama the guy next to Urayama earlier?"

"Yeah." Kirihara frowns for the first time since he saw them. He asks, "How'd you know Urayama, anyways? I didn't think you talked to anyone on the team who wasn't a regular or in your year. And what was that thing about Sanada-fukubuchou?"

"Don't you remember Nationals?" Marui asks. "During Yukimura's match?"

Kirihara shakes his head.

"Well, the kid's got balls," Marui says dismissively.

"But what about his volley? You said something about that too."

"I saw him practicing late sometimes," Marui answers. "And he asked me for advice in the locker room a few times, or on the bus to tournaments."

"A few times? It was all the time," Jackal says. "Niou said that Urayama-kun used to come to their classroom during lunch and ask for his opinion on grip tape and stuff."

"The kid's a fan of mine. I can't blame him; I am a genius after all."

"I doubt that," Jackal says with a bored expression. "And besides that, we were there when Yukimura made him your vice-captain."

"You asked who the fuck he was," Marui laughs.

And just like that, like a wall breaking down in the back of his mind, Kirihara remembers the rest of a memory that felt like it was on the tip of his tongue for the last few weeks.

* * *

Yukimura has yet to mention the captaincy to Kirihara, who doesn't want to bring it up because he figures Yukimura will do it eventually.

"Maybe you're not captain and he doesn't know how to tell you," Niou says one day.

"I doubt that, Niou-kun," Yagyuu says. "Though it is possible. Yukimura-kun is hard to predict."

Kirihara ignores them because Niou is full of shit and Yagyuu can be just as bad as his partner sometimes. Except that was two weeks ago, and it really is coming down to the wire, and Kirihara is driving himself mad with worry. What if Yukimura doesn't make him captain? What if everyone just assumed he would be captain without consulting Yukimura? Or worse: what if Sanada was so mad that Kirihara called him a tennis-obsessed gorilla and convinced Yukimura to forgo giving the captaincy to him?

_Marui tricked me into it!_ Kirihara thinks. _I didn't even mean it. Okay, maybe I meant it a little… But Sanada-fukubuchou isn't that mean, is he?_

Yukimura does do it, eventually, on the last practice of the year, two weeks before the seniors graduate and the school year ends. Kirihara challenges the three of them to individual matches in front of the entire club, and Marui says his loss is spectacular, and Jackal says that he'll get them next time. Kirihara doesn't know when next time will be. He doesn't cry until he's alone in the bathroom, after he makes up some bull excuse about needing to fill up his water bottle. The tears burn like his lungs did after Yukimura robbed him of his senses.

Yukimura has all of the regulars stay behind on the courts after practice. Two first years linger by the gate, talking. One is shorter than Marui and the other is taller than Sanada.

"I'd like to thank you all for a wonderful year," Yukimura says. "And I think you all know what I'm going to say, and many of you probably think it is long overdue, but I assure you that I have my reasons."

Yukimura looks at Kirihara. The rest of the regulars turn to stare at him, too.

"Rikkaidai must have a ruler," Yukimura says. His smile seems genuine. "You've grown so much, Akaya, and I'm sure you'll continue to grow next year as captain."

Kirihara's smile could out shine the sun—he's sure of it. Marui puts him in a headlock, and Jackal ruffles his hair, and even Niou grins at him. Kirihara laughs under their combined attention.

Yukimura waits until everyone has settled down to continue, "We'll celebrate properly after we're done here. But before that, I need to make another announcement." Yukimura turns to look at the two boys by the gate. "Urayama-kun, would you come here?"

The short boy comes over, fumbling over his feet, and Marui blows a bubble to conceal his snort of laughter. Niou quirks an eyebrow at the kid, who stands next to Yukimura and cowers in Sanada's shadow. Sanada stares a hole into the side of the poor kid's head.

"Akaya, this is your vice-captain," Yukimura says.

"Who the fuck is that?" Kirihara blurts.

"_Akaya!_" Sanada shouts.

"Sorry!" Kirihara says quickly, holding his hands up to shield himself from Sanada's wrath, not that they'll do much good in the end. He looks at Yukimura and tries again, "Who is that?"

Yukimura doesn't look amused by Kirihara's outburst, either. Firmly, with complete seriousness, Yukimura says, "Urayama Shiita. He's a very talented doubles player with potential. He's your vice-captain from today forward. We will make the announcement public at the end of the year sports banquet."

"Do I really need to work with him, Yukimura-buchou?"

"Takeda-sensei has already agreed to this arrangement. This is not up for debate."

Urayama smiles nervously at Kirihara, who is torn between fainting in relief that yes, he is captain, and screaming that his vice-captain looks like a girly wimp. How can he rule the all-powerful Rikkaidai kingdom without someone like Sanada by his side?

"Buchou…" Kirihara feel uneasy.

"You're the captain now," Sanada says. "That's your title."

"You'll be a fine captain, Akaya," Yukimura says. "I have no doubt that you'll do a good job."

* * *

The memory fades as quickly as it comes. And that phrase, Yukimura had used it. Kirihara had remembered it shortly after becoming captain but he couldn't remember where he had heard it. Now he has any answer, but he still has no idea what that phrase means.

_Rikkaidai must have a ruler._

Marui steals more of Jackal's food. Kirihara begins to eat again, though with less vigor than before, and the conversation fades out.

"Wanna go to the arcade after this?" Jackal asks eventually. "Or do you need help on homework? You're taking academic level English, right? You finally placed out of the remedial classes?"

Kirihara wants to smile because it's as close to praise as he's gotten since Yukimura told him he'd be a fine captain, that he'd do a good job. Looking back, Kirihara isn't sure if that was praise or an order.

"I did," Kirihara says. "I was above the average, too."

"Good job," Jackal says.

"But help would be nice…"

Marui grins. "My genius is at your service."

For now, the fact that only Marui has texted him doesn't matter, nor does it matter that they left him behind and made him take on a role they did not prepare him for. It's always been easy to forgive them.


End file.
